soos_mite_ah

The Catchup Friend Epidemic I deleted my social media for the last 2.5 months and I think that was really helpful for my mental health and where I have been with this whole journey about figuring out my friendships. I think social media can distort how close you actually are. Going off the previous post about how I decribe the difference between people actively in your life (Meals), versus people who are more so dormant friends (Snacks and Desserts), I feel like social media can make it seem like your Snack and Dessert friends are Meal friends if you see your friends frequently posting their lives. It gives you the illusion of being in their life and them being in yours when really, you guys are spectators rather than participants in each others lives. Again, I think there is a very real grief that comes from changing relationships or not being close to people anymore like you used to be. But I think holding on to social media isn't always helpful in the same way that it's not helpful to follow your ex on social media after y'all broke up. It prevents you from fully moving on and accepting reality. I think social media also contributes to the changing landscape of adult friendships as I have described above. I think there are some existing phenomenon that social media exasserbates. For example, people talk about how your compare your bloopers to other peoples high light reels because people are posting the most curated versions of themselves on social media. Well, this still would happen in 1996 but on a smaller scale, mainly with acquaintences. Unless you saw people on a regular basis (which adulthood isn't really built for), you don't have an accurate picture of what's going on in people's lives and you're more likely to just compare yourself to the idea you have of them or the image they are projecting. Comparison, flexing, gossip, unrealistic body standards, fad diets, misinformation were always problems but now they look different and are magnified on a global scale. Social media isn't creating new social issues, rather it's making old issues bigger. However, while the social issues social media exasserbates isn't novel, you can't deny that technology changes material conditions. I would say that because of social media, it's so much easier to keep up with dormant friends (your snacks and desserts). And that's a very beautiful thing. Now, instead of losing touch with people and seeing them decades later, it's much easier to keep in touch with people you care about. It's easier to keep in touch with family and your culture if they live abroad. If my mom had to immigrate to the U.S. a 100 years ago, she would basically lose touch with her entire family and I wouldn't have the same relationship that I have with my culture today. Maybe she could visit them once every 15 years. Instead, now, she can keep up with her siblings and talk to them on WhattsApp every day and visit them every 2 years. That is amazing. Now, I don't have to say good bye to all my childhood friends because I moved to a different part of the country. I can still share things like my wedding and my college graduation, and other big moments in my life and have them be a part of them in the way that we would fantasize when we were children. Even if we don't see each other regularly, we still have a medium to keep in touch. At the same time, I think there is a way that the catch up friendships and special occasion friendships can get excessive and being able to keep in touch with everyone can backfire. Like I said earlier, social media can prevent you from grieving properly and accepting the reality that you are no longer in some people's lives since there is an illusion of being a participant through things like comments and likes, when really, you're not participating in their life, you're just a spectator. There is nothing wrong with catching up with a friend you haven't seen in a while because they're in town or inviting a friend you haven't seen in a while to your wedding because they are still an important part of your life. But the problem is when these types of interactions dominate your social calendar to where you don't have the room to be actively in people's lives. Like I have two friends who live near me and despite that fact, I have to schedule out hang outs 6-8 weeks in advance just to see them rather than just being able to incorporate them in my life. That's because they have their social lives booked out like a google calendar with a bunch of catch up friends and special occasions they have to show up for. And hey, due to the nature of the interactions, I cannot say for sure how exactly this is affecting them. But I do know that there are limitations to Snack and Dessert friends and that causes me to question the degree of interaction and depth they have to the people they are dedicating their time to. I'm not saying that I expect special treatment because I live closer to them. I know that the way that they are treating me is similar to how they are treating all of their friends and they seem a bit spread thin to say the least. Again, I'm not friends with weirdos who don't value me. I guess I started thinking of this because I was thinking about why people aren't actively in each others lives and have a lot of Meal level friendships. If we're still using the food example, I would say it's kind of like spoiling your meals or your dinner because you ate too many snacks and desserts before hand and now you feel too full to have a proper dinner so as a result, you just resort to girl dinner, aka more snacks masquerading like dinner. It's not that people don't have friends when they're adults. I know people don't have room in their lives for a lof ot reasons like work, family, mental health, etc. But if we push all of that to the side, It's that a lot of people don't have room to actively be in the lives of people it makes logistical sense to pour into because we're still carrying over old connections now that we have more avenues of communication to keep in touch with people. Another social phenomenon I think of is modern wedding culture. Because we keep up with people now, even when people move, that doesn't mean we lose touch. And people are moving around now more than ever because it's easier to do so due to cheap travel and a lot of people need to do so due to economic instability/ opportunity. So lets say in 1976, you might have a season in your life where you have a bunch of weddings to go to because you're in that stage of your life where your friends are getting married. In 2026, that season may involve you having to travel across the country multiple times and pretty much every wedding is a destination wedding since your friends are much more spread apart. Attending 4 weddings in a year to people who are close by in your proximity is just having 4 parties you have to go to in a year. Attending 4 weddings in a year that basically feel like destination weddings is a financial commitment, a hit to your PTO, and a logistical nightmare for many who have to choose between people they care about. In 1976, the friends who were spread apart will naturally fade out and you are more likely to be friends with people immediate to you since it's likely that people aren't moving around every 2 years. Communities were much more localized and the years together along with proximity ensured that you were less likely to have people drop from the meal category to the snack or dessert category. So as a result, instead of having nourishing meals, social media and modern life has incentivized and made it easier to maintain a host of snacks and desserts. Again, nothing wrong with snacks and desserts, they are still part of a healthy diet. And again, it's beautiful that we can still keep in touch with people that would have other wise completely fizzled out. But we cannot have the snacks and desserts get in the way of having meals. Which is why a lot of people can be booked and busy socially yet still feel lonely or feel like something was lost along the way.

The Superficiality of Adult Friendships I wrote the following like a month ago in my private journal and I don't know why I never posted it. I wrote in a previous post about how the landscape of making and maintaining friends changed as you move into adulthood and how that has resulted in shallower connections for me. I’m pretty sure I have touched on these points before but I want to dedicate an entire post to this and talk about it more in depth. The decreased frequency of interactions: Due to jobs, conflicting schedules, and just in general life, even if you’re trying to be proactive with maintaining friendships, you still find yourself seeing people less often just by design of y’all no longer going to school together and seeing each other on a regular basis. This decrease of frequency can result in a lot of deeper friendships to turn into catch up friendships or friends who show up on special occasions. That doesn’t mean that the degree of effort that it takes to catch up or show up to major life events is diminished but it does mean the degree of interaction has changed. The way I see it is the following: Meals: People who you interact with regularly and as a result, people who are actively in your life. I compare this to a meal because a meal has many different parts. They can be healthy or unhealthy, balanced or off balance. If someone is actively in your life, you guys have a number of different types of interactions. It can range from sending little memes back and forth, catching up, having light hearted conversations, showing up for each other during heavier seasons etc. It’s multifaceted, like a meal. I would say these are people you hang out with or talk to at least 2-3 times a month or more. Snacks and Desserts: These are people who used to be in the meal category but have since dropped down due to various logistical and life situations. You aren’t in a place to actively be in each other’s lives but you still make the effort to show up in their lives during the important moments and maintain the connection. The connection might not be getting deeper but it is something that keep up with. As opposed to the meal category, I think of snacks and desserts as dormant friends. Snacks: This is where I put the catch-up friends at. The catch up friends can still be multifaceted like a meal but they are much smaller. Healthy snacks are often like mini meals to help you get through until you get to a full meal (think of a veggie tray with hummus). Like meals, you can have healthy and unhealthy snacks (i.e. Hot Cheetos) . I feel like a lot of people love or hate “low-maintenance friendships” but I think a lot low-maintenance friendships fall on a spectrum of healthy and unhealthy. Healthy low maintenance friends have proactive communication, still maintain friendship with boundaries, and had a foundation established before they became low maintenance. Part of the health in low maintenance friends is understanding that in adulthood, not everyone is going to be available like they were growing up and that you can still have that love while giving each other space. Unhealthy low maintenance friendships can look like a lack of proactive communication, ghosting, and acting like you’re best friends despite only seeing each other 2x a year without investing in the relationship prior. You’re not maintaining a friendship that you built up before like in the healthy example, rather you’re expecting full friendship benefits without any commitment or work beforehand to establish trust. Desserts: This is where I would put the special occasion friends at. These people are much like the catch up friends in that they aren’t actively in your life but you show up to maintain the connection. But, unlike a snack, they are even less multifaceted and aren’t like mini meals. Rather, it’s people you see at parties, weddings, religious events etc. They are sweet and it’s nice to be able to share these big life events with people who have been in your life for a while. These people might be so busy that they cannot schedule the catch-up sessions but the care is still there. That’s in a healthy situation where the connections have more substance (think fruit cups as a dessert since they have more nutrients and fiber than say a handful of M&Ms). But desserts can also be unhealthy/ nonsubstantive. I think a lot of people’s party/ clubbing friends can fall in this category. They’re sweet and here for a good time but they aren’t super substantive and filling. It’s alright if you have some friends like this, but they cannot be a part of your social diet in the same way your diet shouldn’t just be a handful of M&Ms. The Buffet: The buffet is like your larger social circle comprising of people outside of your friends. It includes your general sense of community extending to people like your coworkers, the family members of your friends, your friends significant other you don’t know very well, friends of friends etc. They aren’t your friends but they have the potential to be your friend, kind of how you can look at a buffet and decide whether or not you want to incorporate it into a meal. But that potential needs to be acted on by the parties involved. People who straight up not in your life at all: These are people you know but aren’t connected with anymore. I’m talking about people you went to high school with, ex friends, the significant others of the people who fall in the buffet category etc. These are people who I would say “hi” to if I ever ran into them in a grocery store. I would say that I’m socially malnourished as opposed to socially starved. I feel like I have a 2-3 people who I put in the meal category and everyone else is in the snack and dessert categories. It’s been difficult to see friends who used to be actively in your life drop down into being dormant friends. And while I will say this paradigm is not a linear expression on who I’m closest to (for example, there are people in the Dessert category I would say is closer to me than those in the Meal category just because the people in the Meal category, I’m still in the process of building a relationship with), I do think that there is a correlation. The problem with the snacks and desserts is that you don’t really know what’s actually going on in someone’s life. You might get a general idea but because you’re not seeing the day to day, there is only so much you can know. It’s not necessarily fake, but it can be inauthentic at times. There is only so much you can cover about what’s going on in your life during a catch-up call or by meeting up for coffee. There is only so much you can disclose when you see someone at a special occasion. Like you can say you’re going through a rough time at a party, but you don’t want to go in depth of it because of the social setting in question. Or even if it’s something positive like a trip you went on and enjoyed, there is only so deep you can go at a party. The infrequency of interactions can also result in certain types of socialization to be seen in a different light. For example, let’s say you’re going through a difficult breakup and you feel like you need to talk to your friend 5 times to fully process it and debrief about it. You have two friends. The first friend is someone who is actively in your life and you see them once a week (52x a year) and the second friend is someone who is more of a catch up friend you see once a month (12x a year). If you talk to Friend 1 5 times about the break-up, that’s like 10% of your yearly interactions. If you talk to Friend 2 5x, that’s almost 50% of your interactions in the year. The second friend is more likely to feel like you’re constantly negative or “trauma dumping” due to the extent of interactions. You don’t have as many additional interactions to round out your debrief sessions so as a result, it can feel heavy. The infrequency of interactions can also exacerbate various social consequences, miscommunications, and the ways people fall short in relationships. For example, I remember growing up in high school not thinking it was a big deal if one of my close friends cannot make it to my birthday. Hey, sometimes things come up and because I’m seeing this person on a regular basis, I have countless examples of how this person treats me and the quality of our relationship. But I have seen now in adulthood, people take things like birthdays more seriously with this attitude of *It’s literally one day out of the year, what do you mean you can’t show up this one time? What does that say about our relationship and the way we prioritize each other?* And growing up, I saw this attitude to be stunted and weird, but I kind of get it now. Let’s say you have two college classes. The first class has a daily attendance grade, weekly discussion boards, a bunch of assignments, a handful of group projects, along with a couple of tests, and papers. The second class has 2 tests and a paper. In the first class, if you fuck up on any one of the assignments (even if it’s a major test), you’re still fine because you have the rest of the course work to make up for things. In the second class, if you fuck up on any one thing, you’re cooked. And as a result, I think with friends you see on a regular basis, there is more elasticity, more room to make mistakes and learn, and more opportunity to repair when things go wrong. However, with your catch up and special occasion friends, things are weighed more heavily when you fuck up and you have fewer chances to redeem yourself. Finally, the infrequency of interactions also makes it harder to build new relationships. I think I read some where that in order for someone to become your friend, you need to spend about 100 hours with them. Those 100 hours are much easier to log if you see them every day in school as opposed to going on friend dates when you’re older and trying to make friends outside of your work-place. I think I have been able to successfully make two friends outside of my workplace and I cannot help but think about how if I were in school with these people, the depth of friendship I have created in the course of a year or two is the depth of the friendship I could have made in a semester. The timeline of establishing a friendship is more stretched out in adulthood and it takes more patience to garner a sense of trust even if they are actively in your life. And that can be frustrating for people who are starved of friendships which can result in people going after intensity over intimacy (think the platonic equivalent of love-bombing) or put waaay too much of an emphasis on charisma and personality as opposed to someone’s character and getting to know someone in a sustainable pace (like if you don’t click instantly with a person, they aren’t worthy of being friends with). And I find that to be kind of discouraging for me personally because I’m not a super charismatic social butterfly. I feel like people can fall into three categories: a fan favorite, an acquired taste, and a niche interest. I have friends who are fan favorites and can instantly make friends wherever they go. I myself am more of an acquired taste. It take me a moment to warm up to people and people to warm up to me. Rather than being the life of the party, I think I have an observational period where I sit back and do a vibe check before interacting. It’s not a lack of confidence rather it’s just the way that I operate. I think the fan favorites are like a bright light. They attract everyone, and that includes bugs (weirdos and crazies). I think as an acquired taste, I have more of a natural filtration process built in so while I don’t attract a lot of people, the people who do end up being my friend usually aren’t weirdos. I like to think that my resting bitch face has protected me from insane people and situations. Finally, you have the niche interest which is where I put my boyfriend. He doesn’t click with people or make friends often but when he does, y’all are locked in for a long time. That goes for platonic and romantic. Most of his friends are people he knows for a decade plus and even with our relationship (the only romantic relationship he has ever had), we’ve been going strong for 4 years. The downside of this is that you can have long stretches of not having a lot of people in your life. But the upside is that you have that sense of commitment and stability. To tie it back, I think when you’re trying to make friends in adulthood, the fan favorites thrive much more than the acquired tastes and niche interests. The later two takes more time and effort and not a lot of people are into that, much less know that this is what they have to do in order to make friends in adulthood. And to avoid the work and time it takes to make friends, some people try to speed up this process by resorting to apps to see if they can get that instant click. And those apps can lead to it’s own form of brain rot. As a result, due to the nature of interactions, the increase of social consequences, and the amount of time it takes to build close friendships (or friendships in general). I think people are more incentivized to keep things more surface level. I remember growing up seeing my parents have trouble with opening up and being vulnerable with people. Some of it is trauma but I think a chunk of it is the changing landscape of friendships as you go into adulthood. There is more of an emphasis on saving face. There is less of an emphasis on holding people accountable and having difficult but real conversations. In my opinion, in order to hold someone accountable and give life advice, you need to really know the person and what’s going on in their life so that you have that degree of trust established and you know it’s good faith, and so that you can give well thought out advice given the nuances of the person and situation. And when you don’t see people super frequently, it’s harder to establish that sense of trust, good faith, and genuinely good advice. I think that’s one of the reasons why my parents would say things like “your family is the only person to have your best interests and that you can take advice from”, “your family knows you the best” and “ you can’t be honest about what you’re going through with other people because they will be quick to judge” because to my parent’s, family was the only group of people who were actively in their life. That advice didn’t make sense to me while I was in school and I think was toxic for me because I had people I was friends with in school who did see me on a regular basis, who knew me well, and established trust with. But now as an adult, I can say that all of the Snack and Dessert friends fall into category of people who I care about and who cares about me but in the end of the day, we don’t really know each other, what’s really going on in each other’s lives, or what kind of people we’re growing into. I think some of my Meal friends also lack a degree of context as well. First is my friend who I will call Sam. Sam is more of a Snack friend. She had a chaotic year and we had lots to talk about when catching up. Then, later in the year, Sam explains that she’s been dating someone for a year and is engaged. This was surprising given the chaos of the year and a little concerning. Then, the guy turned out to do something crazy right after proposing, she broke off the engagement, and then started dating someone new in a relatively short period of time. This rang alarm bells in my brain but also, I don’t know what the grief process looks like and what her day to day life looks like so it’s hard to give advice or insight for this situation. I don’t know Sam well enough anymore to comment and hold her accountable since there is only so much I can know about someone who is a catch up friend. I don’t think she is intentionally hiding things for me, rather just by the nature of out interactions, there is a lot of incomplete information there and I hesitate to say anything because I don’t want to give advice that may accidentally backfire due to specific nuances. Then there is my friend who I will call Sophie. Sophie is regularly in my life and I know some of her friends through mutual interactions. She has a friend (lets call him Cayden) who she has had to utilize conflict resolution with. From the initial description, it sounded like normal conflict resolution skills that are important for people to strengthen and grow within in a relationship. Later on, she had a bad falling out with Cayden and then it is revealed that Cayden was abusive. The advise that made sense in a normal situation, to give people chances, to communicate what’s going on, to have patience as people are trying to improve, would make this situation worse if dealing with a bad faith actor. Despite me knowing Sophie and regularly talking to her, I still didn’t know what was going on. There is a degree of unintentional inauthenticity on Sophie’s end and a malicious fakeness coming from Cayden’s end that I wasn’t able to clock within him because of my limited interactions with Cayden. Being Fake vs Being Inauthentic Both of these situations also highlight a safety level of not interacting with people on a regular basis. I think that the infrequency of interactions can be a breeding ground of fakeness and inauthenticity. I would characterize fakeness as a deliberate action towards concealing things mixed with malicious intent. Inauthenticity can be unintentionally not giving the full picture, or giving a more curated version of the truth due to the nature of interaction and to be empathetic to the other person. Let’s say you have a coworker named Heather who you don’t like. Being fake would involve you trying to be chummy / besties with Heather to get the tea and so that you can spread office gossip. Being inauthentic may look like being cordial with Heather and concealing your feelings of dislike because you want to maintain your professionalism, keep good professional relations with Heather and your coworkers by not creating unnecessary drama, and because even if you don’t like Heather, that doesn’t mean that you betray your morals on how to treat people with basic respect. At the same time, you’re not going out of your way to be besties with Heather and be weird. Since I’m not surrounded by weirdos, I think a lot of my Snack and Dessert friends can come with a sense of inauthenticity as opposed to them being fake. But I have had to deal with a fake person before who hung out with me for months as if nothing was going on and then cut me off with little to no explanation. And I couldn’t help but wonder if we were still in a school setting that I would have been able to clock the weirdness, her changes in personality and values etc. quicker. It’s easy to put on a mask when you’re hanging out with someone for 3 hours every 2 months. It’s harder to maintain a mask when you see someone 8 hours a day every day. On a similar note, I remember when I was a kid being shocked about how my parents didn’t know how toxic the other adults around them were. Now that I’m an adult, I get it because that stuff is easy to conceal when you don’t see people on a regular basis. I knew about the toxicity of the other adults around me because I saw their kids who were my age on a semi regular basis and we would have actual conversations of what was happening in each other’s households. I was actively in the lives of those kids, my parents weren’t actively involved with the other parents. Sometimes, I’m surprised on how inauthentic and put together I can seem to other people unintentionally. I have talked to my friends about mental health stuff going on coherently. I even touched on somethings with coworkers I trust. But my partner who sees me on a daily basis sees me ugly crying and crashing out since he lives with me. He sees the full extent of how things are affecting me, messy emotions and all, while my friends get a more analytical, clean cut, spark notes version. Speaking of being fake/ inauthentic, I think this is exacerbated in the work place. I think most people (unless they are a corporate pick me) have a work personality of sorts. I don’t think it’s advisable to show up as your full self at work and it’s important to maintain some boundaries. I’m not going to go off on an anti-capitalist rant at 7 am Monday morning and I’m not going to talk about my drunk night out with my coworkers. As a result, to maintain my professional relationships and have a sense of credibility at work, I kind of have to be the most vanilla version of myself. It’s also out of respect of the people around me because I don’t want to pry into personal life stuff they don’t feel comfortable revealing at work and I understand most people are just trying to do their jobs, get their check, and live their lives outside of work. So since most people have a degree of inauthenticity at work, thought it’s not inherently malicious, I think before becoming actual friends with people at work, you need to vibe check the living daylights out of them even though y’all spend a lot of time together and it’s easier to log those 100 hours it takes to build a friendship. I mentioned this in a previous entry but I have always expected my relationships to change as I got older. I don’t expect people to stay the same and I think dynamics shift based on that. But what I didn’t expect was that relationships will change and that can sometimes mean they become shallower and fade out. I think there is real grief around that. I also feel like this can cause me to feel disposable, forgotten, and replaceable. I know I’m around genuine people but due to the shallow nature of interactions, there is a certain element that feels dehumanizing, not because people are personally slighting me, but because of the overall landscape of adult friendship. It’s in the same way where your coworkers and your boss are decent/ fine, but the fact that you have to continue working like nothing is happening in this chaotic world feels like an attack on your sense of humanity as you’re attending meetings and answering emails amidst a war, a genocide, ICE kidnapping people, and more. It’s the system that is dehumanizing, not the treatment I’m getting from individuals. I miss actually knowing what’s happening in people’s lives and people actually knowing what’s happening in my life. While I know that you can still care about people and have people care about you without them knowing every detail about your life, I think there is a level of dehumanization that comes from only knowing parts of people and them knowing parts of you due the surface level interactions rather than the whole.

The Kids Are Not Alright On today's episode of emotional birth control...... I keep trying to tell myself that social media shows the most extreme versions of the literacy crisis and the kids acting out but then I talk to my teacher friends, my child psychologist friends, and my friends who have younger siblings who are in high school and they confirm that this shit is real. I also try to reframe my thoughts by reminding myself that if I have a kid, it will likely be in the mid 2030s meaning they won't enter school until the late 2030s or early 2040s meaning that the schools and society can change a lot within the next 15ish years. So there is a chance that the schools might not be a shit show by then. Nevertheless, this shit is existential crisis inducing and I have wrote about this in the past. And of course, I don't want to blame the kids in these videos. It's clear that their parents and society as a whole is currently failing them. The world is in chaos. The adults are sure as hell not fine, so it's no surprise that the kids aren't either.

I think a lot of my posts can be summed up by this post that I saw a while back that said the following: "The decision to have a child is an inherently selfish decision that needs to be paid back by a lifetime of selflessness."

Is All Life Worth Living I wrote this in a previous post and I still stand by it. I also caught myself thinking of the book Breasts and Eggs that I read a few weeks ago. There is a part of the book that really lingers with me as I am contemplating the question of parenthood for myself. For context sake, the book is written in first person with the main character, Natsuko, who is contemplating on getting sperm donor so she can have baby since she's in her mid 30s without a partner. She met some people at this sperm donor convention where people who were conceived via sperm donation were talking about the ethics of such a practice and how it impacted their lived experience. She met and became friends with Aizawa, a doctor and someone who was conceived via sperm donation, and Yuriko is Aizawa's ex-girlfriend who was also concevied via sperm donation. Part of the reason why Aizawa and Yuriko became close is because when Aizawa found out he was a product of sperm donation and had no clue who his father was, it blew up his entire life. The person he was engaged to previously broke up with him because she didn't want to have a kid and have the kid not know who his paternal grandfather was. He started viewing himself and all his family dynamics differently, He dealt with a lot of stigma surrounding this issue as this was Japan in the early 2000s and basically, he personally had a breakdown over who he thought he was, what was real etc. Yuriko shared her experiences with also being conceived via sperm donation and she explained that her mom had her via sperm donation and her father (not biological, just married to her mom) repeated raped her growing up. In a way, finding out she was conceived via sperm donation was freeing because at least wasn't her biological father who molested her all those years. That's what she told Aizawa. She's telling all of this to Natsuko and expanded on this story, telling her that not only did her father molest her, but he also pimped her out multiple times in her childhood. It wasn't just in her home, but in her father's car by the river near a park. She illustrated how she remembered every moment of those instances, from the shapes of the clouds to the children her age playing in a park near by as she was getting raped by multiple men. This goes on for a few pages and then Yuriko starts talking about the ethics of having children period. p. 350- 351 Then Yuriko talks about Aizawa's experience in the children's ward of the hospital he worked at. p. 352-353 I think about the forest metaphor often as I'm writing in this journal. I think about how the decision to bring life into this world is a gamble whether it has to do with your current circumstances, how the world changes over time, what kind of kid you get, their temperment, how you experience parenthood, the chance of disabilities etc. I think the odds are better for some more than others. But even if the odds are good, it's still a gamble. And like the book said, no one thinks they're drawing the short straw. And I think what the forest metaphor means to me, is not how good the odds are as a basis of how ethical making this bet is, but if the bet being made is ethical at all. You can make the arguement that Yuriko's circumstance is due to bad parents and that it could have been avoided. Another story that I find myself thinking of is the accounts of a pair of sisters who survived the Nagasaki atomic bomb. I had to watch the documentary for a class and I can't find it right now but basically, the sisters were the only ones in their family who survived the bomb. They both had life threatening injuries and saw the horrific impact of all the people dying around them. At the time, they were only children. Once they go to their 20s, the older sibling committed suicide. She couldn't take the pain of her life experiences and the trauma that came with it, even though her physical injuries long healed. The sister who continued living who is now roughly in her late 60s, early 70s, said that some people see her living as a testament to her bravery and resilience, that even though she went through something like this, that she decided to continue living and that she still saw life worth living. But she clarifies this and says that she's not brave or resilient. This event bled into every ounce of her life. If anything, her sister who took her life was the brave one because she could face death and see that as an resolve from the pain. She didn't continue living because life was worth living. She continued living because she wasn't brave enough to die. And yes, I understand that the atomic bombing is a very extreme example. But my point is that things completly out of your control, even if you have taken every precaution to hedge the bets in your favor, can create a situation for your kid that would make their life no longer worth living. And in that case, was it worth having them in the first place? Again, you're not betting on your life, you're betting on another person's life.

Wanting a Better Life for Your Kid I'm getting a lot of soccer related videos recommended to me because I'm interacting with Fifa related content and I came across this video of Cristiano Ronaldo talking about his son and applying what he as seen to the rest of his son's generation. I don't agree with everything he is saying but I do empathize with him. He honestly sounds like a lot of parents I have met, specifically a lot of immigrant parents who came to the U.S. who made a middle to upper middle class living. I think that especially comes out when he talks about how the newer generation doesn't have the same kind of hunger that he has to strive for better. If I remember correctly, Ronaldo grew up in the slums and didn't always know where his next meal was coming from. That is a very big contrast to where he is right now as one of the highest paid athletes in the world. And I can imagine that relating to his kids would be challenging in the way that their childhoods have been so different which then affects difference in mentality / world view. Again, there is a version of this amongst regular people who aren't pro athletes, particularly in the immigrant community. I'm imagining that times a million. I can also empathize with the kid as well on how living under your father's shadow and how there is this notion that you can never live up to that level of achievement even if you tried because you didn't suffer in the same way or come up against systemic factors in your way. And I think as a result, we need to be very careful on the topic of romanticizng your own suffering. I'm just thinking out loud at this point, I'm not saying Ronaldo is doing this since I don't know him. I think when you're trying to come to terms with difficult things in your life, often times to build that sense of resilience, you look for the silver lining of the situation and you look at the ways that it has caused you to be stronger in some way. I think that can be healthy and it can be a crucial step in people's healing and sense making. But that's the thing, it should be a step on your journey, not the destination. I think that while you can recognize the positives of a bad situation, you still need to recognize the situation for what it is, which is that what happened to you was fucked up and shouldn't be replicated or romanticized. I'll use myself as an example. I've had situations in my life that has caused me to mature faster than my peers and that caused me to be hyper independent. I remember being 19 and thinking that I was the shit because I was more disciplined, I was more dedicated to my personal development, I made better decisions, and overall, I was more mature than my peers who were going out, partying, engaging in impulsive behavior etc. This was my way to reconcile with the shitty childhood I had. However, after going to therapy, I realized that while these qualities I have cultivated were good, I created those qualities within myself DESPITE my circumstance, not BECAUSE of it. Because there are plenty of people who go through similar things as me but they react very differently and less favorably to where they have even more adverse life conditions. Plus, the peers I was judging for going out, partying, engaging in impulsive behavior, they aren't unhealthy, they're doing things that are developmentally appropriate for them. Because I was in survival mode trying to figure out all types of shit for myself without the help or support from my parents, I wasn't able to socially grow, take risks in a safe environment, and be carefree unlike my peers who had more of a safety net. And then, I caught myself thinking about how things might be different if I had a kid and raised them in a healthy environment. In someways, my kid might turn out to be dumber and less responsible than I am. That element of being less intelligent and less responsible doesn't negate my good parenting in the same way that my intelligence and responsibility doesn't negate my parent's bad parenting. Good parenting is not about the immediate good results, rather it's about the consistent practices you have employed over years and decades to eventually lead to good results. I saw a post a while back that talked about how a lot of Asian parents raise good/ successful kids but they don't always raise successful adults. Like sure, it's great that your kid got a perfect SAT score but fast forward another 10 years and you kid has no communication skills and cannot boil an egg. Like sometimes your kid acting out in an age appropriate way is not an indication that you're failiing as a parent because they cannot get ahead, rather, it's an indication that you're doing something right. I'm less worried about the 3 year old that throws the occasional tantrum and I'm more worried about the 3 year old that never does anything bad and just sits quietly in the corner not doing anything. The later kid has a higher chance of acting that way not because of stellar parenting but because they are anxious and terrified of the adults around them. So yeah, sometimes raising your kid in a healthier, and better circumstance can make them look like they are underperforming next to you if your good performance in any area of life (sports, school, spirituality etc.) is rooted in some kind of trauma. It isn't because they suck or are weak, rather, they are developing in slower, more sustainable, and healthier way that is more conducive to them being a more successful and well rounded adult 20+ years into the future. Another thing I have witnessed is parents being envious or resentful of their kids for having a better life. Like yes, the parents worked their ass off to give their kids a better life and god forbid those kids reap the fruits of their labor lol. Like damn... why aren't you happy that I don't have to walk 7 miles to go to school. Isn't that what you wanted lmaoooo. And I think the most common manifestation of this is the mentality of *well I had to go through xyz , so should you.* This mentality isn't just reserved to parents, rather you see this in any social progression. The first example that comes to mind is the people who got into a ton of student loan debt, somehow managed to pay it off, and then when you talk about student loan forgiveness, they get all pissy about it because if they could pay it off, other people should do so as well. And I can see this being a tough spot to be at subconsciously where afterall, if you didn't HAVE to suffer, what does that say about the pain that you have gone through? Then, you're forced to grapple with the meaningless harm and injustice of it all while also seeing people who do have the opportunity to be in a better situation than you and deal with the envy that comes with it. That is a lot to emotionally unpack and it's much easier to spew out snarky comments on the internet. Similarly, on the parenting side of things, I feel like as South Asian daughter, rather than having other South Asian women, particularly aunties and my own mother, build me up and express gratitude to the privileges I experienced, I just got a lot of resentment. For example, it's very typical to learn how to drive and go places alone in the U.S. when you're like 16 years old. My mom was against me having this freedom because *well, I wasn't driving at your age, so you can't either.* I've also had the same sentiment come back to me when it came to hanging out friends, dating, or really just doing anything other than school work. Like lady, you came to this country and you love to praise how many more rights and freedoms we have here socially and politically, but when it comes to me and other South Asian women exercising said rights and freedoms, all hell brakes loose in the household. Make it make sense. There was a TikTok trend a while back where people were talking about how their ancestors are proud of them but tbh, I'm pretty sure that if my grandma was watching over me, she would probably think that I am and old whore because I'm living with my boyfriend and paying my own bills and that I need to get an arranged marriage ASAP. Here are some more wholesome compilations of this trend where the ancestors are supportive lol Personally, I relate to 3:53 to 3:58 In conclusion, if I am fortunate enought to provide a better future for my kid or the world evolves so that future generations don't have to deal with the same tom foolery we do, I hope I'm not one of the bitter old people who looks down on future generations for not suffering like I did.

The comments under this are killing me lmaooo "If he would have been born a thousand years earlier, we would all be speaking norwegian now" "Using someone's face to score a goal has to be one of the most badass football moments ️‍" "Imagine 1000 years ago that dude comes at you with a sword"

Different Experiences of Motherhood I watched this episode of Supernanny and I cried the whole time. I feel like this depicts one of my nightmare scenarios when I think of me deciding to go on the path of becoming a parent. Basically, Antionette meets her husband Dwight, gets married, has a couple kids with him, and then soon after that, Dwight passes away. The kids are pretty young too. The younger kid is only like 5 months old when the dad passes away and the older is about 2 years old. Unlike a lot of the other episodes of Supernanny, the parents seem like reasonable people who did do a lot of things right. They aren't super young with 5 kids and keep popping more out. The kids seem relatively normal and not feral (tbh, it was nice to see how this 2-year old acts as a reference of what is normal after seeing episodes of demon kids feeding off each other). And that's why I wrote about the notion of wanting to be a parent unconditionally because you can do everything right, and still be in the trenches and find yourself as a single mom of two young kids. The episode was very touching. It mainly focused on helping the mom have some degree of structure in her day to day, give her space to grieve, and brushed up on some parenting techniques. I loved how the show got her community involved to help her through this and the amount of time they dedicated to keep the dad's spirit alive for the kids so that they will still know their father in some way and still be connected to their father from the relationship the dad had in their community. The scene where Antoinette was expressing the anger in her grief really stuck with me because imagine dating around, nothing working out, and then eventually you finally meet the love of your life in your late 30s. Everything is going great and you're building a life together, you have two kids, and shortly after that, he just dies. Imagine having to go through your preganancy and raising infants while having to provide end of life care for your husband. Like I have thought of scenarios like this of what to do if shit really hit the fan while I have a kid. And I think I could handle it even if it's difficult. But I don't think I could handle something like this if it happened in the first 5 years of me having a kid, much less having multiple kids. The baby and toddler stage already freak me out. But imagine having to deal with that with a bunch of disasters happening in your personal life and you have to hold it together for you kid. Motherhood can show up in many different ways depending on someone's personal history, their life situation, where they are in the world, their socioeconomic class, how supportive their partner is, what kind of community they have around them, what kind of infrastructure (parenting can look different in a suburb vs a city for example), and of course, random life events happening. I try to tell myself that my experience of motherhood can be very different depending on all of these factors. In a more positive note, I think I will have a very different relationship to motherhood compared to my mom and grandma who didn't have much of a choice in the matter because of how carefully I'm thinking through this, how I would prepare for a life event like this, and the extent of which I have an education and a career to where I can financially stand on my own. I will have a very different relationship to motherhood compared to my peers who got preganant and had their kid in their teens and early twenties. In the same way that losing a parent when you're in your 20s is a very different experience to losing a parent in your 40s or 50s, I believe that having a kid in your teens/early 20s is very different from having a kid in your 30s or 40s. It's still going to be hard and there are tradeoffs on whichever age you become a parent, hence why there is no perfect time to be a parent, but some trade offs are worse than other imo. I know some people talk about having kids young so you have the energy, but I think that having kids older is a much more stable time to have your kid. I know I wrote above on the different levels to adulthood and I think that when you're at level 1 or 2 of being an adult and you have a kid, you have to figure out how to be an adult and raise the kid at the same time. Both are difficult things to do, and having to do that at the same time often means you're stunting yourself in a lot of ways which then seeps into how you rais your kid, stunting them as well. I know the counterarguement will be *well, you have to grow up faster if you become a parent young* and to that I would say that just because you grow up fast, doesn't mean you grow up right. And often times, when you are rushing, you're missing key milestones and a sustainable pacing that will help you grow your maturity in a more solidified way. I feel much more capable of parenthood at 26 than I do at 23. I wrote about this before but I remember at 23 feeling like I have so much more to figure out in life to where pregnancy and motherhood felt like a death sentance. Maybe part of the reason why parenthood also felt really scary back then is because literally some of the craziest people I knew were getting pregnant and they were getting pregnant very young to where having a kid was a super disrupting event. I'm not saying that having a kid in your 30s and beyond isn't also disrupting, but it isn't like developmentally disruptive. Similarly, if you were 27 when COVID happened, even though it sucked, you probably came out unscathed since you had a fully formed brain. But if you were like 7 when COVID happened, that probably disrupted your social, emotional, and educational development and still probably affects you today. So basically, considering that I'm thinking through my decision to become a parent carefully, I'm working with a therapist to deal with my various neurotic tendencies, I am a relatively stable and well adjusted adult, I have a good amount in savings and financial stability, and I have some basic education on how to raise a kid, all those things can mitigate how difficult parenthood can be for me. And that's not even considering the fact that if I decide to be a parent, I'm probably not going to have the kid until I'm in my mid 30s, giving me another 7-8 years to prepare and get my life together. Something that makes me emotional about this decision is how I have the opportunity to choose differently in my life compared to all the women before me in the way that parenthood is optional and I can create a beautiful and fulfilling life apart from it. Sure, it's had being in conflict with myself and being in this existential crisis, but the luxury of choice is not a luxury that everyone has. But, even if I do decide to go on the more conventional route and be a parent, I'm still going to experience parenthood very differently. On a more negative note, I could do everything right and have motherhood be difficult because life can be difficult. Going back to the Supernanny episodes, one of the things that really hit me was when the mom was saying things like "I wasn't supposed to be by myself and raise these kids alone" when talking about her husband suddenly passing away from cancer and leaving her to raise two young kids. I also think of how you can financially prepare and then have some fucked up life event that causes you to be in poverty and raise your kids in that situation. Again, the situation is less likely and the severity can be mitigated if you saved before, but you can still be in very difficult financial situations with a kid. Hell, something could happen to you and then your spouse has to raise the kid alone so it's so important to pick a good partner because they will be with you through some very difficult moments and they will have to pick up where you left off. You could have a perfectly healthy kid, they could get into a horrible accident, and then you have to care for a special needs kid which then changes the trajectory of their life and your experience in parenthood. Life is so long and so much can happen, and things can unfold in ways you didn't expect in a both negative and positive way. Also, taking both the good and bad into consideration, even though I'm pretty sure I would only have one kid if I decide to be a parent at all, I find it interesting when I hear stories of siblings who have a pretty big age gap and as a result, had completely different versions of their parents despite having the same parent. I think in general, while people love to talk about siblings having the same childhood, that isn't always accurate and the truth is more nuanced than that. Even if they were close in age, birth order can affect things and so does personalities and how they clash/ compliment with the parents. Each sibling can also have different ways they navigate the dynamics in the household and they can respond to the same upbringing or life events in different ways. I think of the example of Ross and Monica in Friends where the siblings were treated very differently from each other by the parents where Ross was the golden child of sorts and Monica was seen as the scapegoat. Sure, that's a more toxic example, but I think healthy versions of this can manifest in familes as well. Then there is the age gap of it all. The craziest example I can think of from my own life is this guy I was friends with in high school. His mom had him when she was 19 years old and his dad walked out on them. He never knew his father and grew up as an only child. In addition to his mom, he was also being taken care of by his aunt and grandma who he is pretty close to. But then, when we were 17 years old, his mom got pregnant with his half sister. Granted I didn't keep in touch with him after highschool, but I remember even when we were in highschool and his sister was just born, I remember he was experiencing some grief around how his mom is having another kid in a much more stable part of her life and how his sister will have her dad in her life. And it was like watching the sibling have a much healthier childhood he never got to experience. I wonder how that has evolved over the years and I really hope they're all doing well. I have an older father and I was born when my dad was 42. He has some regret around having a kid so late in life because that means that he will have less time with me and potentially his grandkid. But then I think about how my life would have gone had I been born in 1989 instead of 1999. Even though he was 32 and was at an age where its very typical to have a kid, and most of his peers were having kids, I would have gotten a very different version of my dad. That version had yet to unpack his PTSD and was still getting flashbacks. That version was very financially unstable and would have materially given me a very different life compared to the upper middle class upbringing I had. I wouldn't have had the education I had much less be able to pay for college. I wouldn't have gone on the family vacations that enriched my childhood and contributed to the adult I am today. That version had a lot more issues mentally, emotionally, and financially he had yet to work through. Don't get me wrong, my dad wasn't perfect when raising me but I am thankful that I didn't go through any of that.

I feel like I need to rant about my body image for a little bit. I think 75 hard is causing me to hyper focus on my body composition. I know I lost a little weight based on how my clothes are fitting and how I have more muscle tone. But for some reason, I feel even fatter now as if I'm hyper aware of the squish. I also feel like my sense of what is considered thin is distorted with society's shift back to being really skinny. It's good that I'm off social media and that I'm limitting my exposure to that type of content but sometimes, despite me limiting my media consumption, it feels inescapable. I feel like no matter where I look, I see celebrities getting really skinny, people talking about how pilates got them long lean muscles even though it doesn't work that way, skinny tok people, people talking about being in a calorie deficit, people talking about maximizing protein, ozempic, and people rejecting body positivity. While society is losing it right now, I won't deny and say that some of it isn't my fault either. My body image has never been stable. Even though I have felt good and bad about my body throughout the years, I never felt like I had an accurate perception of what my body looks like. I'm not skinny. I'm like 5'2" and a 150 lbs. But I can't say I'm big either since I typically wear a small or extra small. But sometimes I have to size up to a medium or large to fit my chest. I can't say I'm skinny fat. I'm not particularly flappy or squishy. I can't say that I'm athletic because I do have parts of me that is squishy and I'm not lean. Like yes, since I'm 150 lbs and 5'2" but I wear a small, I do have a good bit of muscle mass. But at the same time, I still feel considerably larger than women who are my height, especially when I think of the whole "pilates body" thing. I have a large chest (I'm a 30I) and often times I feel like that throws me off but I don't think I can say I'm curvy either because I'm like 5'2". Like yes I do have a chest and a butt, but because of my height, I don't feel curvy rather I just feel compressed. It's like I'm smaller than the average woman, but bigger than the average woman who is 5'2". I'm more athletic than average which is why I don't look squishy but I'm not super lean so I don't look shredded. But I'm also not fat either but then my chest throws everything off. It's like I cannot cleanly fit into any body type or category which messes with my head and also makes shopping hell. The best way I can describe my body type is dense. I'm working out twice a day and I'm really sweaty all the time. I know body changes take time but there is something about working out twice a day as opposed to 3 times a week that makes it feel like it's dragging out. Also, I do notice improvement in my overall fitness. The other day, I ran a mile on the elliptical in 6 min 57 seconds. My cardio is improving. I'm doing betting my fitness classes. The weights I have been lifting have been getting heavier. I have a higher baseline of physical activity. And as a result, I rarely feel sluggish and overful when eating out. So performance wise I'm improving, but I feel like the way my body feels doesn't match how it looks in an odd way. I also tried the 12-3-30 treadmill workout the other day. I completed it and I want to continue doing it because I want to challenge myself and get better. At the same time, I felt kind of trash doing it. I had to do two 15 min sessions with a break in between rather than doing the 30 min entirely. I was also holding on to the treadmill during most of it. I would give myself 1-2 min without holding the treadmill and then like 2 min holding the treadmill and I alternated according to my ability. I was told this was a beginner workout and while I ultimately completed it, I feel like I struggled.

A Desire for More Responsibility I sometimes wonder to what extent do I actually want to be a parent vs to what extent this desire is just symptomatic of me wanting more responsibility in life and having a brighter outlook on the future. That's not to say that my desire to have more responsibility and the more optimistic outlook shouldn't contribute to me going in this direction of parenthood, but it's more so about determining if my desire for being a parenthood is a passing mood or if it's an orientation of how I want to structure my life. I was thinking about the nature of my desire around parenthood and a lot of it has to do with wanting to be a mentor and guiding young people. It's not a biological urge (pregnancy still feels gross but bareable). It's not a sense of ownership (I'm fine with being a step parent). I also like the idea of being a trusted adult in the lives of my friend's kids. Even if I choose to be child free, I don't wish to live in a child free world. And sometimes, I wonder if this desire is just coming from an age appropriate place as I want to hold myself to a higher standard. I have been writing about how I define adulthood for quite some time in my main journal. But I want to highlight the post below because I think it's really reflecting the sentiment of me entering a new phase in adulthood: In this post I talk about my realization that getting married and having kids are age appropriate activities for someone my age (irrespective of if it's the right decision for me specifically) and that while it's normal to be a little shocked at your 20 year old peer getting married and having a kid, it kind of gets into infantilization territory to have the same reaction when you're 26 and your 26 year old peer is getting married and having a kid. I also talked about the kind of adult I don't want to be in the form of this embarassing uncle that was at this wedding I was attending. And that section is more about how we need to up our standards when it comes to what we expect from the people around us based on their age / stage of life. The way that this man was acting was already not okay but it's even worse considering he's in his 60s and at an age where he should be the trusted adult in the room, not a drunk that has to get escorted out by security. And yeah, I do want to grow to be a trusted adult people can go to as I age. I also do feel a responsibility towards young people, especially kids. I think I can still have that role even if I decide to be child free, but I think it's also easy to conflate the desire to be a trusted adult and the responsibility you have towards young people with desiring parenthood. There is a connection there, don't get me wrong. I just want to be able to separate the two so that I can dissect how I'm feeling and understand how to approach parenthood. As I was reflecting on this, I kind of remembered something I wrote a while back and it feels revealing: I wrote this a year and a half ago but it feels like I wrote it at least 2-3 years ago. I like how I push back against my initial feeling that I'm averse to responsibility based on my values, life situation, and world view. I also like how I talked about not wanting kids here. I still think that the bullet points above reflect my stances today but what feels shocking is how I was worried I was averse to responsibility back in January 2025 while now in June 2026, it's obvious that I don't have an aversion to responsibility, and if anything I'm craving it. I also don't think that once you hit 18 that you're an adult and you're basically the same as a 30 year old or a 60 year old. I remember when I was 17 and my 18th birthday was right around the corner, I was so stressed out because I felt like I needed to have my whole life figured out from what I wanted to major in college to my plan to save up to buy a house. If I could go back in time, I would just tell my 18 year old self that there are levels to adulthood and you don't need to have level 3 figured out when you're at level 1. This is kind of how I would explain it to her: Level 1 Adulthood: This is the adulthood you reach legally when you turn 18 and you graduate highschool. At this point, you don't have to have a whole lot figured out, just know basic life skills like doing your own laundry, being able to clean your room and pick up after yourself, basic time managment for your college classes, and cook a couple meals so you don't starve. Maybe by now you're living away from your parents or living else where from where you grew up (if not, that's okay too). Ideally, by now, you also want to have good communication and relationship skills and some basic maturity so you're not being confused for being 14 years old or a neckbeard on the internet lol. So long as you do that and successfully avoid future killers like hard addictions, dating people in their 30s who have no business messing with 18-22 year olds, and you don't lose all your money in sports betting or crypto, you're good. Level 2 Adulthood: Usually by now if you went to college, you just graduated. Or, if you never went to college, you have been in the adult world for a few years. This stage usually starts at around 21-23 years old. By now, you don't have your entire future figured out, but you do need to have a general sense of direction and hopefully, some degree of financial independence from your parents. Around this time, you're learning how to navigate personal finance in a healthy way, figure out how to navigate the adult world and where you fit in, and you're just adjusting to life after being in an educational institution for most of your life. You're also in a more exploratory stage where you're figuring out what settling down looks like for you. You may be experimenting with different careers, figuring out what city you want to live in long term, date around and think about marriage, figure out if you want to have kids etc. You're also moving your life around a lot to explore your different options but also to logistically get to the life you want to settle into. Maintaining friends can be a bit difficult at this time because people are bouncing around trying to figure their lives out and those logistical changes and priority changes can change dynamics in your relationships. Level 3 Adulthood: Around this time, you have a good understanding of what settling down looks like for you and either you have made the moves to actualize that reality or you're already there. Life stabilizes more and you aren't bouncing around in the same way. That doesn't mean that you don't make changes at all, but you're usually working with a 5 to 10 year plan as opposed to thinking a year or two in advance like being in Level 2 adulthood. There is no set way to settle down. For some people, that means a stable career, a house in the suburbs, and 2.5 kids. For others, it can be travelling around nomadically, having a remote job, and deciding not to marry. For some it can be getting a house in the woods and living more monastically away from most people. Basically, you have established a specific lifestyle according to your dreams and values for a longer period of time. This isn't defined by a set age. Some people figure out what settling down looks like at 25. For others, it take them until they're 35. When and how people enter Level 3 is where a lot of people start diverging into different timelines and life experiences. Level 4 Adulthood: This is around the time when people approach middle age and they start seeing the fruits of their long term goals or the reprucussions of their bad habits that have compounded over the decades. You might or might not have a midlife crisis of some kind. Maybe by now, for some who had kids, they are moving out and now you're dealing with empty nest syndrome. Or perhaps, you have been in a set career for a while and you're either looking to change things up a bit or you're planning your exit. Maybe, you're freaking out about retirement as it is more of a concern for you since it's fast approaching. Even if you're like 50 and you're not planning on retiring until 65, 15 years later, your perception of time tends to speed up and you start to think that the 15 years will go by in a blink of an eye. Level 5 Adulthood: This is like retirement age. You're basically a senior citizen and depending on how old you are, a lot of the people you care about are going to start dropping like flies. You spend a lot of time contemplating the life you have lived and what you're going to do with the time you have left. You might have a quarter life crisis like the 20 year olds. However, while the 20 year old is having a quarter life crisis about what to do with the rest of their lives, your quarter life crisis is about what you're going to do with the last quarter of your life. Hopefully you have retired and now you're figuring out what to do with your life now that you aren't working. Or maybe you are still working in some way and you're trying to figure out how that's going to go going forward. You might have thought of your mortality over the years in the previous stages, but now, it's much more tangible and you're trying to figure out what that means practically, emotionally, and medically. Level 6 Adulthood: This is like 80+. You've been retired for a while now and as far as I know, if you haven't kicked the bucket yet, you're just waiting for your death and talking shit about people in the mean time. Some people get real freaky at the retirement homes from what I hear lol. And I would hope that over the years, you start to get wiser and that your sense of responsibility to the people around you increases. I feel like most people who are in their mid twenties, we're unc, but like to small children under the age of 10. Listen, I'm like unc to a 5 year old. But I'm not unc to a 17 year old. But as you approach your mid 30s and beyond, you're like unc to everyone younger than you at that point. And then, once you're like 50+ and you're like at level 4 and beyond, you're basically an elder in the community and hopefully, you act like. Unfortunately, there are a lot of old people that grow old, are stuck in their ways, and stagnate instead of getting wiser and becoming a reputable guide in the community. I feel like right now, I'm at a level 2.5. I feel like I have some elements of what settling down looks like for me figured out and I'm logistically making moves to actualize that. I know my values and what kind of life I want to create. I have my opinions on home ownership. I know what kind of city or place I want to be in long term. I know what I want in a life long partner (and I might have already met him). I know what kind of industry I want to be in. I feel like I'm competent enough for some people to look up to me. The only thing I feel like I haven't figured out is whether or not I want to be a parent. I do feel like it's more appropriate to have a leadership role for me and have more responsibility. I think that's normal as you start from level 1 and move to level 2 and beyond. I just don't know if that extra degree of leadership involves parenthood or not.

What is Punk Rock I was definitely one of the "emo" kids back in high school who listened to alt rock from the 90s and pop punk from the 00s despite being in 2016. I was born too late to be one of the proper emo kids of the early 2000s and I was born too early to be e-girl. Instead, I was born in the best time to be made fun of lmaoooo. A couple years ago, I was listening to music as I was comuting to my corporate job and as I was sitting in traffic, I was listening to Fat Lip by Sum 41 and I got to the part that was like "I don't want to waste my time, become another casualty of society. I'll never fall in line, become another victim of conformity," I remember blasting this music when I was 14 years old after a day at the mall coming back from Hot Topic thinking it was based and let's just say, it hit different at 24 when dressed in business casual. Then, once I got to the office, I sat in my car for a solid 10 minutes thinking *damn.....did I become a casualty of society?* And I came to the conclusion that, no, I'm not a casualty of society. Rebellion just looks different when you're in your mid twenties compared to what it looked like when you were in your teens. Sure, 16 year old me might look at me and say *yes you did become a casualty of society because you're in a boring office job you don't like.* But 16 year old me also didn't know how taxes worked and didn't live through a global pandemic so I'm not taking her opinion TOO seriously. Yes, I do have a boring office job that crushes my spirit. But, I also value work life balance and I'm not a hustle culture bro or a snitch at work. I'm not exactly conforming to upper management and I do try to stand up for myself and my coworkers in a way that makes sense and is helpful. Outside of work, I still have hobbies, still listen to a lot of the same music (though I have expanded), I still care about what's going on in the world, and I'm thinking critically about my life decisions instead of conforming for the sake of conforming OR rebelling just for the sake of rebelling. I also thought of this quote from Innuendo Studios in the video below: The video was talking about how Daria as a show and as the character was against the grain regarding the overall cultural zeitgeist of the 90s and how it doesn't land in the same way in the 2020s. And since punk is what's against the status quo, and since the status quo can change over time, what is punk can change over time based on context. That context can be historical like comparing the 90s vs the 20s or it can be regarding your stage of life like in my situation with comparing my teens to my mid 20s. But more on the cultural note, the reason why I thought of this again and why I wanted to write this post is because this video came up on my Youtube feed: I feel like this is the epitome of what is considered punk in 2026. I also liked the comments under this video: Lyrics: See me driving down the street I'm bored with looking good I got both hands off the wheel The cops are coming I listen to the music with no fear You can hear it too if you're sincere 'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am 'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am I see you stagger in the street And you can't stay on your feet And you're faking in your sleep You wish that you were deep But you can't hear me laughing to myself If you could, you would be someone else 'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am 'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am See me die on Bleecker Street I'm bored with being god See me sneering in my car I'm driving to my star I'm listening to the music with no fear You can hear it too if you're sincere 'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am 'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am 'Cause I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am Well, I'm a punk rocker, yes, I am

The Parents Who Did Genuinely Think This Through I know in my previous post I was dragging some pro-birth people and that I have in previous posts have criticized on how a lot of people have kids waaay too casually for my liking. But among the large segment of the population who decided to be a parent, there is at least a few people who did genuinely think this through. I can't say I know a lot of these people. I'm sure some of them live among me and I haven't had the chance to actually have that conversation with them. But I have encountered them online. I think the people who genuinely thought through their decision to be a parent aren't pressuring other people to have kids. They know how much work it take to raise a human and as a result, they know that this life choice isn't for everyone. In the same way that not everyone is meant to be an lawyer, go through law school, work 60+ hours a week, and be this career oriented person, not everyone is meant to become a parent as it relates to their values and their desired way of living life. Parenthood rearranges you physically, mentally, emotionally, and the overall structure of your entire life and how you can make decisions. And unless this is really a path you want for yourself that you have carefully considered, it's best to not go on this path. And the people who genuinely wanted to have kids and thought through it aren't going shame you for being child free either because they see that life has many ways to be fulfilling, that you can have many forms of long term human connection, that in the same way they are living according to their values, you're living according to your own. They aren't going to be resentful of you being able to sleep calmly on a flight while they are dealing with their baby crying. Sure, they are going to be tired and wish they got more rest. That's natural. Wanting parenthood doesn't mean that you think it's going to be easy and it doesn't mean that you're going to absolutely love it 100% of the time. But if you genuinely thought through the consequences of being a parent and chose it anyway, you'renot going to side eye people and give them weird hateful energy for having a more chill existance. People who genuinely thought about and decided to be parents are also not going to try to rub things in child free people's faces about how much more fulfilling parenthood is. Like seriously, some parents sound like Cassie from Euphoria when they talk about being happy and fulfilled in parenthood while dealing with their feral kids as they are trying to get child free people to have kids too. Like there is an element of misery likes company and there is an element of people trying to justify their own decisions because they didn't think things through thoroughly before hand to some people who get defensive about the choice to be childfree. If you were genuinely happy with your choice AND you have thought about other avenues, you're not going to miserable about other people choosing differently than you or having a choice at all in this matter. I stress the "and" because I also think that there is a segment of the population that did end up being happy about their choice to be a parent but it isn't because they thought through their decision to be a parent and arrived at the conclusion that this is the right choice for them. It's because they made a choice and they lucked out in terms of liking parenthood and being able to create positive meaning out of it. And I think my dad falls into this category. He did the work to be a parent and I think he genuinely found fulfillment in it. So it's not like he enjoyed parenthood because he barely did any of the work. He lucked out in the fulfillment aspect of it and due to a survivorship bias, he thinks that most parents probably feel the same way. As a result, it doesn't compute in his head why I'm carefully thinking about this as I am. He didn't think, and it worked out. Therefore, I must be overthinking. I also think he has limitations in his imagination regarding other avenues of fufillment because of the time he was born and the lack of healthy, childfree people in his life. The only childfree person he know is his brother who decided to be childfree out of spite and resentment for his dad (my grandfather) and essentially wanted to end my grandpa's bloodline. TLDR: I think parents who thought things through and still decided to be parents aren't going to be weird towards childfree people in the same way that people in happy, healthy relationships won't tell you to lower your standards for the sake of getting into a relationship.

Maybe there is some selection bias on my end but this is what I mean by the child free by choice people are at least asking the right questions while a lot of these people who are pro-child birth have arguements that can easily be dismantled. Those arguments don't make sense if your goal is to be a parent, not simply give birth. My favorite part of the video was when the guy was talking about on how people in third world countries have like 8 kids and they still find ways to "make it work" and are happy and fulfilled. And then the creator clapped back and was like *this guy clearly has no clue what they are talking about and has never been to a third world country.* First of all, a lot of people don't make the conscious choice to have a kid due to things like education, a lack of options in their life, unavailability to contraception, religion etc. Secondly, tf you mean by make it work? If your definition of making it work is simply providing food, water, and shelter for another living being other than yourself, then you have a very limitted definition of what it means to make something work. You're dealing with a human being, not a pet. There are plenty of people who have a shit ton of kids and raise them in squalid, unsanitary conditions that are not fit to provide a person with a dignified life. Which again, tells me this guy has no clue what life in a third world country is actually like. And even if you do have a semi decent living conditions for said kids and everyone has baseline survival, your definition of making it work is still so limited. Like is having a traumatizing childhood exemplary of something that "worked?" Is having a kid who grows up to be a menace in society because you didn't parent them property an example of something that "worked?" I could go on but my thing is let's not romanticize the past or romanticize the way things are being done in developing countries and actually hold ourselves to a higher standard of thought, ethics, consideration, and self exploration and maybe a higher standard of what is considered "making it work" if you do decide to go down the route of parenthood. I'm not saying that if you are born into a underveloped or developing country that your life is not worth living or that it's impossible to be a parent in those circumstances. I'm not an anti-natalist and I don't think that we should forcibly sterilize people, literally or emotionally. But what I am saying is that we need to expand our standards of what is considered good parenting and expand the quality of life of people as a whole and carefully take into consideration our reproductive choices under that context.

I feel like this video also coincides with the post I made about commodifying human connection. It mainly talks about how third spaces have become a buzz word of sorts.

It Be The Damn Phones I don't agree or disagree with Vaush's points here on how technology, particularly smartphones, is what is causing a global decline in birth rates. I don't agree in the sense that it's difficult to narrow down one factor that is affecting everyone. A lot of people cite the cost of living and climate change as reasons why they aren't having kids in developed countries but in the past, the cost of living was worse but people still had kids. I would argue that the reasons why people are not having kids varies. In developed countries, it's the cost of living, unstable working conditions, climate change, political instability. In developing and under developed countries, it's an increase of education, greater degree of womens rights, and industrialization because you don't need 8 kids if you no longer work at a farm. People are having more education in terms of contraception and people have more opportunities as a result of said education to do things with their lives apart from just popping out kids. Also, women have more agency now to not have a shit ton of kids. I think the vast majority of women do want to have kids, but probably not like 7 ya know. Plus, the drop in birth rates in the U.S. is because teen preganancy isn't happening nearly as often anymore. The birth rates for women in their 20s and 30s has been stable. At the same time, part of me agrees that it's the damn phones. I remember my dad telling me a story of how when he was little, he asked is grandparents why they had so many kids (both of his parents had 8 siblings each), and they responded with "well, back in our day, we didn't have radio and TV so we had nothing better to do." And I think the doom scrolling and being glued into social media is an extention of the same phenomenon. But the part that sucks more about the phones is the way that people aren't socializing IRL as often and it's a bigger time sink. That said, I do think that other factors exasserbate this because if you are being overworked, even if you didn't have a phone, you probably wouldn't have the same time and energy to be socializing. But now, the phones are multiplying this affect because it's a very easy coping mechanism to use when dealing with the increase stress of daily life. But then, I look at my own reasons why I am hesitant to have a kid, and it does root back to the phones. For example, while I'm confident in my ability to be a good parent, I'm worried about the broader society that I'm bringing the kid into and the kids that aren't the best influence. And which kids am I referring to? I'm referring to the army of ipad babies and their ipad parents. Again, it's the damn phones. I'm also nervous about the state of the education system and pushing back against that to ensure that my kid is being educated properly. And what's wrong with the education system? It's the tech dependence, the underfunding of public school system, AI being shoved down people's throats etc. Again, the damn phones.

Fifa World Cup 2026 Like any typical American, I don't particularly care about soccer. But, I will say, the World Cup being hosted by the U.S., Canada, and Mexico has been quite nice in terms of uplifting my spirits. I feel like I'm getting a break from all the chaos that's happening in the U.S. (among other existential crisis tha I have been having lol) and that I'm able to appreciate my country from a fresher set of eyes from all the people coming in from all over. Here are some moments that made me smile: The people from Kansas being Algeria's fans after Algeria decided to set up their base camp in Lawence Kansas Seeing how excited and hyped Japan is and how they also clean up after themselves. It's just wholesome. People reacting to Texas BBQ People going to Buc-ee's for the first time People celebrating and pulling up in general: People reacting various culture shocks (like A/C, Walmart, Costco. and free refills to start) and them reacting to our radioactive food It still kills me that they're freaking out over mid food like Chick-fil-a and Chilli's and they are discovering ranch sauce. It's to the point where TSA had to give a warning saying that the ranch dressing has to be in the checked baggage since it's a liquid lol. I remember seeing a comment that said something along the lines of how the foreigners trying our food is like them getting their first hit of drugs while we're all used to it because we're just cracked out. Then, there is the beer shortage in Boston after the Scottish fans came in: I cannot find this on Youtube but I turned on the local news on TV the other day and they were talking about how the World Cup is temporarily boosting mental health in the U.S. because of the festivities and all the communal events. There was a watch party along with food trucks that was set up in a park that I live close to and there was a pretty good turn out.

My Character Build and Stats I found the video above to be quite fun and I wanted to use this as a reflection tool. Health: 65 I’m athletic / have good habits but I also have PCOS. I have good mental health but I can also be prone to burnout in high pressure environments. During this leave, I would say that I'm at an 80. I am pretty energetic and I have plenty of time to take care of myself. But I'm taking off points because of the PCOS and because I feel like I'm not getting enough socialization which is impacting my mental health. Intelligence: 80 I’m pretty smart but I have a few subjects I’m not great at. In school, I was good at math, anything in the social sciences (history, political science, sociology, psychology anthropology), and art. I cannot science to save my life (think your typical biology, chemistry, physics) and subjects that are super tedious (like law or some forms of literature like idk, Russian literature from the 1820s) fly over my head even if I do take a disciplined approach to things. Also, I think the other thing is that I retained a lot of information I learned throughout school and college and I think that gives me a leg up compared to a lot of my peers now that I'm a few years out even though I didn't shine in school itself. Charisma: 65 I’m generally likable and can get along with most people but I’m not a leader nor am I rizzing people up left and right. As a result, I think I'm a bit above average in that regard. I also think that my intelligence stat and wisdom stat contributes to how hight this is. I think there are ways to increase this stat which I have reflected on more in detail in the post below: I think if I really work at this, I can be at a 75/80. I don't see the point in going above that unless I have different goals in life that would make me want to increase this stat. Discipline 75: I stand on business but I’m also sustainable about it. However, I can be prone to burnout if standards are crazy. Also, my attention span can use some help. I feel like if I healed my attention span, this stat could be an 80 tops. I think my discipline stat is capped due to my moderate health and high wisdom stats. The only way I can get my discipline stat above 80 is if I stop listening to my body and do unsustainable things or I somehow turn off my wisdom that would tell my unsustainable paths are a good way to go. I think this is one of my most interesting stats. I would say throughout high school and early college my discipline stat was at a 45. It wasn't piss poor to where I was one of those students where I was smart but didn't put in effort so my grades were tanking. But I was one of those students that kind of coasted due to my intelligence stat being high and because my health stat was low (I'm talking mental health). I would say that I was able to raise this to a 60 in my later college years after addressing some mental health stuff and then I think I had another bump to my discipline as I took on my corporate job which raised it to 75 now. I would say that throughout high school and college I was a low A, high B student. My grades would typically range from an 88 to a 94. I think the reason it was never higher than that is because of low health and because of high wisdom. While I did see the importance of an education and doing well in school for my future, I didn't see the point of simping for the top 10 colleges in the U.S. and sacrificing literally everything else in my life to get high scores or to out compete people. Like I wasn't going to stress myself out over a 94 vs a 100. I also like the point in the video on how a lot of high achievers or the type of person who works 80 hours at an investment bank might have above average intelligence and a 99 in discipline but their wisdom is like at a 5. Wisdom 85 or 95: I make good decisions and I have a good head on my shoulders. I meditate a lot and have worked on myself a lot in and out of therapy and self improvement. I feel like I'm tooting my own horn and that I'm being a bit cocky and narcissistic (after all, I don't want to think I'm so wise that I cannot be prone to things like self deception). But I do think that I've had a pretty high stat my whole life given how introspective I am and how my peers perceived me. I think even as young as 13, I would say something, and my peers would think I'm being deep when I just thought I was being normal. I think this does subtract like 5 points from my charisma stat because I can be a bit intense without meaning to. Even now, I'm pretty good at helping my friends through difficult life situations and ensuring they don't fall down weird pipelines. The reason why I have two numbers is because I think if you compare me to my peers, I'm at a 95, but if you compare me in general, I'm at a 85. I think I'm more wise than the average 26 year old. I mean, I don't think many people are in their mid 20s solidly in stage green/ yellow and have integrated the previous stages in a healthy way. But also, I think I have room for wisdom to grow since some wisdom can only be acquired through time and additional life experience. Appearance: 55 I’m not ugly but I am kind of mid. I don’t get mistreated for my looks but I’m also not getting any perks. I don’t have pretty privilege but thankfully, I don’t have pretty problems either. Some people have told me I have a really nice body even before surgery (I'm talking about from men and women in a non-flirtatious / non-creepy contexts). I think if I really tried, I could be at 85. But that would mean losing a significant amount of weight (which can be a huge hit to my mental and physcial health), having to invest in a new wardrobe since I'm in Adam Sandler mode right now, getting my hair done regularly, getting various beauty treatments like facials, botox as I age, laser hair removal etc., and I put in a lot of time in daily beauty habits. Out of all of those, I would say only the new wardrobe seems worth it because that also boost the creativity stat and the (mental) health stat by a couple points. I guess I can lose a little weight without it being detrimental to my health but I would say that's more of a by product of my other fitness goals but not the main focus. I think at most, I'm content at being at a 65/70. Courage: 30 I can be in my head a lot. I do feel like I have agency and capability to be resilient if it came down to it but I tend to be risk adverse in matters I do have a choice in. I’m not particularly impulsive. I am also anxious, not in a mental health disorder way, but kind of in a personality type way where I like to plan things, get to places early, and, again, be really in my head. Since this is a relatively low stat, I think I would benefit from increasing this the most. Creativity: 65 I have had multiple creative outlets in childhood and adulthood. I can be quite skilled in artistic matters. I can paint, sketch, make little models of things, change up food recepies to make them taste better, have a decent eye for interior design etc. Let's just say because of this, a lot of people wanted me to be a part of their group projects growing up lol. However, I’m not particularly innovative even though I am skilled. I can sketch out a really realistic portrait of someone from a photograph. But I cannot reproduce that on my own and I definitely cannot do something unique or novel to it that would make you think of the artistic qualities of said work. I'm also not particularly innovative the entrepreneurial sense or in terms of my day to day work either. So that's why while I would put myself above average, I wouldn't put myself significantly above average. Goals going forward related to my stats: Maintain my high health stat Increase my charisma stat by increasing my social skills as described in the linked post Increase my discipline stat by fixing my attention span Increase appearance stat by getting my clothes in order and losing a little bit of weight Increase my courage stat (idk how yet but I will lol)

Commodifying Human Connection I watched a video the other day and I think it really summarized something I have been feeling for a while: For the longest time, I wondered why activities like paint and sip classes, axe throwing, run clubs, pickleball, and the such felt *off* and weirdly hipster/ gentrified to me. I never judged people who partake in these activities nor do I judge the organizers. If anything, I have this degree of respect for them because they are atleast TRYING to do something in this world that is seeming becoming more disconnected and hyperindividualistic (while I'm just currently sitting on my ass writing about this). This video goes into that more in depth but basically, traditional forms of community are crumbling and in its place is coming this commodified version of community. And I think a lot of this commodification is happening because people are trying to implement individualistic solutions for systemic issues. Modern adult life is fragmented and lonely, so activities become packaged substitutes for older forms of community. Instead of things like: neighborhood culture, extended family, religious/community institutions, intergenerational gathering, and stable local friendships, you get ticketed recreational micro-events designed to produce connection quickly and efficiently. There is also an element of hyper optimization that's there where instead of building a sense of familiarity over a course of time with your neighbors by being present in your surroundings and free time, you opt for these quick fixes that you can easily schedule into your Google calendar. There’s also a certain millennial/gen-z urban-professional aesthetic attached to many of these. Like pickleball as approachable athleticism, run clubs as a proxy for wellness + networking + dating, paint-and-sips as curated creativity, and axe throwing as sanitized rebellion. Sometimes what’s irritating is not the activity, but the sense that identity itself is becoming commodified into consumable hobbies. It all feels corporate in a weird way. However, I don't think these forms of community is bad thing because all forms of community have a degree of dysfunction that can be present. Traditional sources of community like churches, neighborhoods, extended family, etc can be subjected to things like toxic conformity, gossip, racism, sexism, homophobia, a sense of obligation without compatibility, and caring too much about what other people think. I'm South Asian and I feel like I have a good sense of how community can look like outside of the hyper individualism of the U.S. and outside of the commodified versions of community. I think that's why I don't romanticize community in the same way as a lot of leftists do in western countries, yet at the same time, I do still see the calls to community as a valid critique to the hyper individualism that comes from late stage capitalism. Like I think what a lot of young lefists and liberals describe as "building community" in the west is really just them trying to build a friend group in adulthood now that they are no longer in a school or college environment. And I think this lack of understanding of what community actually is leads to the over curation of it all, even outside of a commodified setting. Like no, community isn't a group of local leftists in the communist bookstore with baby bangs. That's just your social circle. Community includes your neighbor in his 70s that might have questionable political views but is generally a good person. It includes the mom with 3 kids under 10 who lives above your apartment that is making a lot of noise. It includes the annoying neighborhood watch groups. It includes your coworkers you might not necessarily instantly click with. It includes parents that you don't like but your kid and their kid are still some how friends. It's not just people who are in the same stage of life as you and who share the same opinions/ values with you. Don't get me wrong, I don't think you should allow EVERYONE into your community (i.e. sexual predators, raging neo nazis, or people who would be genuinely harmful to everyone else involved), but it does need to be more expansive than the people who are willing to pay their dues for a run club. I think there is grief I'm experiencing regarding a pre-pandemic world. I don't know what adulthood looked like pre-pandemic but I have a few people a bit older than me who have a recollection of what life after college was like. It just felt like people were outside and social more, like they had a different outlook on what it meant to be a normal person. I remember seeing a post a few months ago on how we see a favor like driving someone to the airport as a *community building thing* now but even 15 years ago, that was just a thing you just did as a part of the norm. And I feel like this pattern of how we inflate the value of pro-social tasks today that we used to see as normal not long ago has exasserbated post pandemic. I remember telling a story about how I showed up to a friend's house extra early for a party to help her set up and calm some nerves. The person who I was sharing this to was telling me how I'm *such* a good friend and that my friend who I had helped won't ever forget what I did to help. But to me, this kind of felt like it was the baseline. Like I helped my friend clean up a little around her apartment, I didn't drive her to the hospital after she got an allergic reaction lol. I think the way that tasks that consisted of you being a normal person a few years ago is being inflated into these community building gestures has to do with how scarce and how much more inconvenient they seem post-pandemic. I know the video above is talking about how community feels monetarily expensive. And I don't think there is something inherently wrong with spending SOME money to go out and live your life. I'm not saying you should beat yourself up regarding the finances of you buying lunch as you're hanging out with a friend. I think of the following quote from Karl Marx: “The less you eat, drink and read books; the less you go to the theatre, the dance hall, the public house; the less you think, love, theorize, sing, paint, fence, etc., the more you save-the greater becomes your treasure which neither moths nor dust will devour-your capital. The less you are, the more you have; the less you express your own life, the greater is your alienated life-the greater is the store of your estranged being.” At the same time, I don't think money should be a barrier to entry for socializing. I've had friends over the years who lost their jobs or experienced time without income and I loved having the opportunity to find cheap or low cost things for us to do. I also love having people over and just yapping more than meeting up at restaurants these days. I think part of it is that I want to same money and another part of it is how enshitification is coming for us all. A lot of restaurants are over priced AND mid lol. And I think there is an added layer of intimacy of people coming over to my apartment as opposed to us meeting in public. There is an element of other people becoming more intertwined with my day to day activities as opposed to us having to curate and schedule things out in advance by 6 weeks. And I think the setting also feels much more low stakes and casual. Speaking of casual low stakes interactions, Bengali people have a specific word that refers to such things called "adda." When I think of "adda" I think of your friends randomly coming over to your place, you making them a cup of tea and some snacks and yall just chilling for a couple hours / an unspecified, unstructured amount of time. I also think of these specific chairs that are all over the developing and underdeveloped world: https://20toestravel.wordpress.com/2017/05/21/the-plastic-chair-praise-of-the-underappreciated/ (I ran out of space for attachments so I'm just going to include this link) I think of the evenings in India where a bunch of kids go down to play and you have just some random neighborhood aunties sitting on these plastic chairs and talking shit about people while loosely watching the kids (and reporting them to their parents who live else where in the apartment complex if they are misbehaving). Like you don't need money to socialize. All you need is a plastic chair and a random snack you're willing to share. You don't need to go to a scheduled event. You don't need to deep clean your place and go all Martha Stewart in there. You don't need to spend $25 on a mediocre salad. And you definitely don't need to go into a network event that is just the personified version of Linked In. And I think this degree of curation and commodification becomes an obstacle in the very degree of intimacy that a lot of us crave. The video above goes into this point more regarding the app Partiful for example which started out as an easy way to invite your friends to events but then devolved into annoying, impersonal push notifications that you get from people you barely know. I think of this in the relm of hosting where some people making hosting into this elaborate event with themed decor, a fancy menu etc. I don't think there is anything wrong with that. For some people, that's just their hobby and tbh, I enjoy doing the same thing during the holidays. But I think there is a certain kind of intimacy where rather than going all out, that your friend is allowed to see the dishes piled up in your sink or the pile of laundry in the corner that you have yet to fold and put away. I'm not saying bring your friends into unsanitary conditions, but I am saying that your place doesn't have to look like it's out of Better Homes and Gardens. And I think that's why a lot of new parents have trouble making/ keeping friends. Because rather than just having people over in their chaotic environment as is and allowing them to help with the baby and be incorporated to their day to day life, they feel this pressure to host people, clean up, come up with a menu etc. Or they feel the pressure to scramble for a baby sitter so that they can go out with their friends at a club or expensive restaurant when that isn't really their life style or stage of life anymore. Again, nothing wrong with getting a baby sitter so you can get out of the house and not be attached to the kid, but it's more about the expectation of being hyper scheduled and having to treat socializing as project management. I don’t resent people for creating structured ways to meet in an isolating world. I respect the impulse. But I grieve that so much adult sociality now has to be branded, scheduled, paid for, and curated. I want more room for the ordinary, imperfect, low-stakes forms of togetherness where friendship is not an event we produce, but something that can coexist with daily life.

I'm so tired of 75 Hard I feel physically exhausted from doing the 2 workouts a day even though one of the workouts is usually a walk. I'm waking up sore everyday. I'm sleeping like 9 to 10 hours a day. And this overall doesn't feel sustainable. Working out and moving no longer feels like something that feels fun and fulfilling and more like a chore. And I think the exhaustion is also trickling into me fulfilling other responsibilities that I want to accomplish during this leave.

Brittany Simon I have been watching her content on and off for the last year or so and I want to unpack my takeaways. Brittany Simon does philosophy through pop culture through a leftist lens. I do enjoy her videos and the way that it makes me think and challenge my own views and sense of progressivism. I like the way that she has forced me to stop, think and deconstruct various things, especially when it comes to ableism. I'll be honest, while I'm good on deconstructing things related to patriarchy, racism, capitalism, clasism etc. (I always have room for improvement, don't get me wrong) I'm not the best at recognizing my ableism which can sometimes bleed into the capitalism bit, but also it can show up with the way that I view mental health and neurodivergence. And I think Brittany can be really good at pointing out my own blindspots in the creators I enjoy watching even if I think she can be a bit nitpicky about things. I watched a lot of Chelsea's content and I watched Chelsea's video before watching Brittany's. I didn't initially think there was anything wrong with Chelsea's video but I'm glad that after watching Brittany, I was more aware on how unconscious biases around ableism for mental health can come up. While I don't agree with everything Brittany has to say, I do appreciate her perspective and the perspective of her comment section. I think it's very constructive and on some ways, I feel like I intellectually met my match through her content. My take is the following: I think there is a difference between policing people’s bodies and saying “hey, something is off.” You can talk about people’s bodies but it has to do with what you’re saying and why. I agree, calling Ariana scary or gross looking is not okay. But saying that this degree of thinness is indicative of something like an eating disorder especially with how the beauty standard is coming back around to be thinner than before (thin isn’t back in, it always was, we just went from bbl skinny in the 2010s back to heroine chic skinny in 2020s). I also agree that the internet is probably not the best place to do this and that it’s up to people who are closer to the individual who is suffering to address this rather than randos making think pieces. At the same time, I think weaponizing the progressive language of “don’t talk about women’s (or anyone’s) bodies” is a problem. It’s like, are you saying that to shut down constructive commentary and enabling the person or are you actually doing this out of care for the other person. There is a difference between saying “hey I’m observing a trend in the wicked cast members, what’s up with that?” and shutting that down with “don’t talk about women’s bodies. Versus being on the Marvel movie press tours where men often have to do very extreme diets and workout routines and asking about the workout regimen of the actors not in a concerned way but in a way to glorify unsustainable and potentially unhealthy practices. I think in that situation saying “don’t talk about bodies” is constructive. Finally, I think it’s a good point to bring up that people who are suffering shouldn’t be isolated, don’t deserve lose their jobs etc. At the same time, I think being in the public eye as a public figure as opposed to a private citizen is a different ball game. I do think if you are so in the depths of your eating disorder to where you are incredibly skinny that you need to take some time out of the public eye. I don’t think that applies the same way if you’re incredibly overweight and are struggling with your health because thinness is glorified and promoted. Brittany was mainly talking about how Chelsea's video was riddled with weird language such as describing Ariana as scary and gross, and likening going to Ariana's concerts as going to a human zoo because of her current state. She also stressed on how we shouldn't talk about people's bodies at all under any circumstance and that those conversations are only for Ariana and those who are close to her. Finally, she made a point to emphasize on how people with mental health issues are often isolated due to stigma and that no one deserves to lose their job due to such things or that they still deserve to be in the public eye. Again, I appreciate a lot of Brittany's views and I think it supplements my own view on the ethics of talking about such things and how to approach these topics. But I do have things that I disagree with her in the details. And yes, the video above did initially feel a bit nitpicky and annoying in the leftist purity testing way. But I do think that the nitpickiness does have a place in the broader information ecosystem in that it forces us to not skip over the details and refine our view of progressivism. It's about having higher standards for ourselves and the people around us. This is another video that I watched today. I think the basis of this video makes sense. I agree that fashion is political and we should be mindful of what kind of statements that we make and what kinds of identities we are signalling towards because of the way that can impact the people around us. I agree that wearing suits and just in general, what is considered professional attire is intertwined with things like racism, facism, and white supremacy. I agree that with Hasan specifically that the suits are more of a costume rather than something that he is putting on authentically and I like the way that Brittany opens up conversation and critique around this. I like the way that she talks about respectability politics and what the suit actually conveys. What I disagree with is saying that wearing a suit is fascism. I think that's too broad and bold of a statement to make. I also think that in politics, there is an element of having to choose your own battles and frame your stances in a way that gets most people on board. As far as choosing your own battles, I think you need to choose whether you want to appeal to conservatives and have them also be receptive to your message and build a broader coalition or if you want to embrace being your authentic self and push against conservative norms around professionalism. And personally, I think the former is a bigger fish to fry in 2026. If Hasan wearing a suit can make a conservative grandma see the importance of universal healthcare and cause her to not vote for Trump, that's more important and more urgent than dying your hair unnatural colors to push against the white supremacy of professional dress codes. I think we can fight the "what is considered professional" and unravel that from white supremacy another day but nevertheless, I do appreciate the conversation that was had. When it comes to the framing, I can see why this would be considered coddling the conservative grandmas and playing into the respectability politics instead of calling out said grandmas and demanding that they don't judge people who dress unconventionally. I also agree that changing your look isn't always going to gurantee acceptance in certain circles (Megan Markle for example) and that some people are still going to judge your harshly and not take you seriously. At the same time, I think that in order to get things done and get the ball rolling to change minds, you do need to meet people where they're at and sometimes, framing things in a way that is more favorable to them can change some minds even if all minds aren't going to be changed. Another thing that I like about Brittany's content is the way that she emphasizes the need to be adult in the room and to take yourself seriously (I don't have specific videos to point to but this is something that is emphasized in a lot of her work). I think this message on one hand really resonates with me but on the other hand challenges me. The part that resonates is the notion that as you get older, you need to increase your maturity and increase the accruacy of your world view so that you can adequately guide future generations and be a safe, reliable person people can go to. I think this also challenges me because I've never been good at taking myself seriously. I have journaled about this in the past and I have written the way this shows up for me in some specific instances as well as why this is a problem: I do think another aspect of Brittany's content I don't resonate with is how autistic she is. I don't mean this in a bad way, nothing wrong with the tism. I mean this in a way to address my own biases and ways that I might misinterpret Brittany, not agree with the way that she approaches some topics or situations, or find her delivery a bit annoying (even if it's correct). I think I am picking up on the black and white thinking, the intense orientation towards justice, mixed with some remenants in her religious Catholic upbringing when I catch myself thinking she's nitpicking too much or that she is getting caught up in leftist purity politics. At the same time, I try to push past this initial annoyance to try to understand where she's coming from and if I find myself feeling like I disagree, I try to articulate it to myself and see if that is coherent or if there are things that she's picking up on that I'm just not. For example, with the first video that I linked above with the Ariana Grande issue, I did find myself feeling a little annoyed. I will admit that part of it was her disagreeing with a content creator I like and that it was poking at my own blindspots. I did again, find it was nitpicky. But in defense of the nitpickiness, we need to have higher standards for ourselves and the people around us. And yes, I did disgree with her on some aspects, but I made sure that the disagreements were coming from a more constructive place as opposed to me just being a hater and not looking at my own issues.

Supernanny My boyfriend and I have been watching episodes of Supernanny after one of the crazy episodes ended up on his YouTube recommended lists. We found these episodes to be very entertaining and it would usually take us twice as long to finish an episode because we would keep pausing the show every 5 minutes or so to comment on what's going on, laugh at these situations, and speculate on what the parents are probably dealing with off screen. I feel like we have had a lot of good conversations from this show and that we have like a few inside jokes between us from some of the feral kids. Ngl, I do feel like watching these episodes feel like emotional birth control to me. Honestly, I think the kids are funny since they aren't my own lol. I remember watching this show in the early 2000s as a child and I remember watching these other feral kids and laughing at them for their behaviors. And I think my parents would occasionally tune in thinking *thank god that isn't our family.* Now that I'm an adult, I think I'm engaging with the contents of the show and the dynamics with the familes much more. I'm also noticing on how so many of these episodes the dads are often not present in the kids lives as a proper parent and the mom is doing most of the work. I also noticed how there are no familes in this show that consist of an only child and two parents. Which did feel like a boost to my ego because growing up, I was always made to feel weird about being an only child and I have heard that if you only have one kid, that is a sign for dysfunction. Welp... let's just say that none of the only child familes were so out of control to where they ended up on a reality TV show. I noticed that most of the episodes had 3-5 kids, if not more, and the parents are often really young (like they are in their early 30s and started popping out kids in their early 20s). In my opinion, 3 kids is the most you can have without neglecting your kids and each kid you add, it doesn't multiply the chaos rather it exponentially increase it. Like 1 kid is hard, but 2 kids is like 4x as hard and 3 kids is like 12x as hard. It gets "easier" after kid 4 from the parents perspective and I put "easier" in quotes because usually after kid 4, there is neglect and parentification happening to the older kids who then have to step in and be an additional set of parents to their younger siblings. Like if I ever have a kid, I'm going to be one and done. I don't want to deal with siblings fighting and feeding off of each other. I definitely don't want to neglect or parentify anyone. And I would much rather give my one kid a good parent than be a mediocre or shitty parent just so that they can have the sibling experience. I think a lot of the episodes have 3 or more kids because that adds to the chaos factor in the show which means more content tbh. There is only so much mayhem one kid can cause lol. I have noticed the ages of the parents where the young parents are typically more chaotic. I don't blame them. It's really difficult to know proper parenting at that age when you're still figuring out your life, how to navigate the adult world, and where you belong within it. I feel like I notice that more now that I'm in my 20s and it feels crazy sometimes on how some of the parents that have 4 kids are like 2-3 years older than me (or like in the video above, the parents are younger than me). Also, regardless of the parents ages, I like on how in all of the episodes, Jo, the nanny, calls out the parents and their dysfunctional parenting and relationships instead of blaming the kids. That confrontation is always satisfying. Finally, I like how the show displays healthy parenting and the process of teaching healthy parenting. I know Supernanny US ran from 2005 to 2011 and according to various reddit posts, while some of the techniques are helpful, they also either need to be supplemented with additional strategies or be updated to more current parenting knowledge. That said, it's helpful to see these things in practice with kids that aren't super well behaved. And I think, given the timing of the show, it's an important stepping stone to get away from the commonly held belief at the time where the only way to incorporate discipline is to yell or spank your kid. Even if I decide not to be a parent, I still think that some of this stuff is important to know about because I'm going to have people in my life who do have kids and I think after a certain age, part of being an adult is being a reliable figure that people, especially kids, can go to. I do think it's interesting that Jo Frost doesn't have any kids of her own and only has a step-grandson even though she filmed multiple Supernanny shows. I watched the podcast below of her talking about her experience with the show as well as the critiques she has gotten over the years. One of my favorite parts is when she gets the question along the lines of "what do you have to say for people who critque you giving parenting advice when you don't have kids of your own?" and her answer was "do you need to have cancer to be a doctor?" I think people are quick to critique childfree people on their takes on how kids are treated because they assume that they don't understand what the parents are going through. And don't get me wrong, I can understand the defensiveness that can come from the frustration and the stresses of parenthood and how it can be such an intense experience to where people stress relatability as a barometer of empathy. At the same time, I think child free people can take a step back and assess the situation more accurately because they aren't as caught up in the chaos. Plus, childfree people were all children once as well and they can still drawn on various life experiences when dealing with kids. I like how Jo emphasized that you don't need your own biological children to care about the well being of other kids and be a stable and active figure in a kids life. Overall, I do genuinely think that she cares about the kids that she works with and that she did approach this show ethically which I respect immensely especially given the general trends in the reality TV sphere. I also watched another episode of Supernanny recently and then when I scrolled down on the comments, I found out that the eldest daughter in the show has her own social media and spoke about her experience filming the episode as well as how it impacted their family about 10 years later. It sounds like it was a really positive experience and that the production was genuinely trying to help. It was interesting to get additional context and the additional experiences they had with Jo when it came to working out the family issues. I think some things got left out because of the air time in this particular instance but I also noticed in other episodes things being left out or vaguely alluded to for the sake of privacy for the families. But I think it's good that the familes still got help off camera and it was even more in depth than what you see on the episodes.

An Increase in Empathy I think as I have been thinking more about whether or not I should become a parent that I have gotten a deeper sense of empathy towards the people around me. Don't get me wrong, I've always had a sense of empathy for most people but I think now, I'm thinking from the lens of *what would it be like to be the parent of this person?* or *what would it be like to parent under these circumstances?* For example, a few weeks ago there was a shooting near me and a few people were shot. Of course there is the layer of empathy around how messed up this was, what was this like for the individuals that were harmed, how this is impacting the community and the people around me. But then, I caught myself thinking things along the lines of "imagine being a parent and then decades later, your kid gets shot" , "what are the possible parental and community level enabling that caused the shooter to do what he did since his actions don't exist in a vacuum," "imagine getting shot and then you have to recover and still parent your kids. Also, imagine what it's like for the kids to witness this." I also think over the years I have found myself looking at my elementary, middle, and high school years more fondly. Not in a romanticized "I wish I could go back" kind of way but in a "I might not have liked everyone from those years but now as an adult, I no longer harbor any ill feelings towards those kids and I genuinely wish them well." I find myself thinking about random people and thinking about what was going on at home in addition to school that was contributing to them acting the way they are or what it must have been like being their parents. I feel like I especially think of this when I think of my friends who had young parents (I'm talking their parents had them when they were in their teens or late 20s) and how that impacted my friends growing up and into adulthood. Like "what was it like having to have a kid at 18 and then having to go to college plus figure out your adult life while having to raise a kid?" or "what was it like for the grandparents involved having to look after the grandkids after dealing with their child's teen pregnancy?" Or when something awful happens to either the parent or the child, I'm like "damn, and you still gotta go home and raise those damn kids. What do you have to do in order for your parenting to accommodate this so that this event doesn't taint the way you're raising them." Then I think of the kids that I didn't really get along with when I was a kid. I mainly had trouble getting along with the "trouble makers" which ranged from kids who were doing drugs, not paying attention in school, the hot cheeto girls that would intimidate me, and the like. And I think about what I would have had to do from the parent's perspective to correct their behavior, to understand them, and encourage them in their interests. I really don't like how some adults would label some kids as good or bad, or how they would label some kids as the problem child, the smart one , the pretty one etc. because now that I'm an adult, I can see how that create a complex in the kid and how that can show up in a variety of ways well into adulthood. That's not to say that you can't compliment you kid on being smart or pretty or that you have to enable you kid by not calling out their bad behavior as bad but it is to say that writing them off or forming their identity around that is pretty fucked up. And I think as the kid who didn't know better, I also fell into the pattern that the adults around me were exhibiting on labeling some kids as the trouble makers, the dumb ones, the smart ones, the successful ones, the quiet good ones, etc. Now as an adult, I try not to do the same thing for other kids. For example, my boyfriend has a friend, who has another friend who has a kid. The kid is like 8 years old now and the mom had him when she was like 19. The kid is a little bit chaotic and rambunctious and I think my boyfriend and his friend has a knee jerk reaction to say that he is a bad kid. And on the surface, I can see how from the perspective of the parent he is not one of the easier kids to raise and how especially if you had to deal with the difficulties of parenthood from such a young age, that you probably aren't well equipped to handle such situations, which makes the kid and situation more frustrating. But at the same time, I don't think this kid is "bad." I think he is largely acting out because of the instability of the mom's life. This led led to the kid having incosistent attention from his dad (and eventually the dad abandoning him all together), constant moving, strange men coming in an out of the house, and a mom who is trying really hard to figure out her own shit to where he gets neglected or is causing the kid to be on the receiving end of less than ideal parenting. And I'm not looking down on the mom either. Don't get me wrong, I do disagree with her on a lot of things and I don't like the way she handles some situations, but I can have some empathy for her seeing that she really is doing her best (even if it's not great). As a woman, I can empathize with the pressures put on her, the bullshit she has had to go through, and how a life event like this has moved around her prospects in life and the extent to which she was able to grow and develop as a person. It's not to excuse the way she's raising her kid but it is to give additional context and understanding of the situation. Like I think a lot of kids who act up is a combination of their surroundings and life circumstances, the way they are being parented, age appropriate behaviors, and also the temperment. Out of the 4 factors, only one is personal and up to chance 100%. The surroundings/ life circumstances, and parenting skills can be controlled and prepared for to a certain extent. And the age appropriate behaviors is just markers of developmentally healthy tendencies that shouldn't be taken personally but should still be corrected and taken seriously. Like yes, it's normal for 4 year olds to be egocentric tantrum monsters. That doesn't mean you take their actions personally, see them as evil, or think you're a bad parent. But you still do need to discipline them so they know right from wrong and so they can continue developing in an age appropriate way. Speaking of age appropriate behaviors, I do think the whole "you're kid is so mature and calm for their age" isn't necessarily a good thing or a proxy for good parenting. Sure, on the surface it can look like it because it carries this notion that you must have done something right for them to behave. But, having a quiet kid can be the by product of a lot of things. Maybe that particular kid's way of dealing with instability is being quiet and standing in the corner because they're anxious, while another kid with a different temperment's way of dealing with the same situation is to act out. Maybe, the kid is more mature for their age because their parents are making them responsible for adult issues and they're forced to grow up faster. Maybe the kid is really anxious and terrified of the parents because the parents are abusive. Don't get me wrong, I do think in some situations, kids can be healthy, calm, and well regulated because the parents are doing something right like providing them a stable environment, modeling good habits, soothing the kid to where they learn to soothe themselves, etc. But as a parent, you can do all of those things and still have your kid act out in age appropriate ways and have that be healthy. If anything, if I encounter a pair of 3 year olds from different parents, and one of the kids is acting like a normal 3 year old/ having tantrums, while the other kid is too scared to do anything or show any emotions, even thought the second kid is seen as "easier to raise" I'm more worried about the second kid as opposed to the first kid. Sometimes, considering the parents having good parenting habits and are raising the kid in a good environment, the kid acting out is indicative that they are comfortable around the parents and are alright with sharing their emotions, which is a good thing. But yeah, it's not as simple as having a good quiet kid who always behaves well in public versus having a bad kid who is like the human equivalent of an agressive chihuahua.

Bruh... both of these kinds of parents creep me tf out. And even if you don't subscribe to this shit, the way that the rest of the community and society enables this type messaging for young kids is soooo gross