@earthshine the modern condition aka the condition of coastal big city Americans

@earthshine The one thing I find most intriguing about the Fediverse is that people have or find revelations about why modern life is such a struggle all the time.

@earthshine 100%. and even worse for those experiencing racism or other forms of discrimination— they don’t have the large support system AND the rules of the rest of society don’t apply to them.

@earthshine as someone raising children this one cuts deep  there is a lot of truth in the saying “it takes a village.”

@earthshine I wonder if the whole individualistic pressure in the US is meant to divide us so we're weaker and easier to control.

@earthshine yes I'm pretty much alone most of the time these days.

@earthshine He's a smart guy, writes good software too.

@earthshine I once had a manager, a single woman, that was determined to be a superwoman. She was VP of where we worked. She was also going to be a single super-mom, so she got herself pregnant without the father's awareness, had the baby, and discovered that the only way she could be Superwoman/Super-Mom was...to have her mother take care of her child.
That poor kid.

@earthshine So true.

@frank Yeah - some thoughts of mine on that: https://www.harihareswara.net/posts/2019/its-not-just-you/

@earthshine Yep. Every musician is now a producer, an engineer, a mixer, a masterer, an A&R rep, a manager, a social media manager, a non-music content creator, etc. And by necessity!

@earthshine It's weird how instead of having actual support networks again what most "RETURN" types mean is "let's roll back women's rights two hundred years and starve every urban area".

@earthshine I'm only tired because nobody is able/willing to do anything *CORRECTLY,* which means I have to to the job over, which takes longer than my doing it myself, right, the first time.
So, why do double work?
#GenXers

@earthshine you mean how I feel like a total idiot because I'm building and running my own saas and struggling with international tax issues that I can't solve by myself.

@earthshine having a kid with a minimal family support network is tough yo. No babysitter takes some creative work scheduling.

@earthshine I mean let's make a large support network, who's with me

@earthshine a large support network can definitely be nice, but it is also necessarily a large obligation network

@earthshine take napoleon for instance. He was not a working class hero. He was Italian aristocracy that took over the French government.

@earthshine Yup, dat me

@earthshine given that I recently became a parent, this totally makes sense to me!

@earthshine @TicklishHoneyBee see also me traveling around the world and being literally incapable of asking for help from anyone lest I be a burden to them

@earthshine see also, glorification of busyness 🙃

@earthshine
It's lonely and arduous. Even in my mother's day, more people stayed close to home all their lives. They had big family dinners and helped with each other's children. But when we were grown, my cousins were spread all over the US.

@earthshine I just wish I had help mowing my yard.

@earthshine One of my (unpopular?) opinions is that having to do everything yourself is a net negative on freedom, despite what "rugged individualists" believe.

@earthshine The converse of this is people pointing out how productive certain rich people are and saying "they have the same 24 hour days that you do."

@earthshine It took me a long time to learn that professionals have staff and work at it full time, and baking is my HOBBY.

@earthshine what's a support network and how do I get one?

@earthshine This. So painfully, painfully true.

@earthshine
Damn, that's profound.
This one cuts deep:
The modern condition is mostly trying to do things on your own that people have historically achieved with a large support network and wondering why you're tired all the time.

@earthshine becoming a parent really drove this home for me.

@earthshine THIS THIS THIS

@earthshine Because our cultural support networks are gatekept and kept exclusive to people who are good at the game of capitalism for the explicit and sole reason that if people are supported just because they're living human beings, they might try something crazy like trying to opt out of the game. So if we don't keep poverty as a living hell to abandon dissenters to it'll mean the end of society!! We'll all be equally poor!! You won't even be able to buy the power over life and death anymore!

@earthshine on the other hand, there’s far more things that we used to have to do for ourselves, from growing food to building our own houses, from making and mending clothes to the education of our children.