AltivoHow often does Easter collide with April Fool?
letienne@Altivo the last coincidence was 75 yrd ago, the next one will be 11yrs from now.
@letienne Ah, that explains why I don't remember it ever happening. I'm too young. (Don't get to say that very often now.)
@Altivo yeah mortality, what a bitch amiright?
@letienne Something like that, yeah. ðŸŽ
@Altivo i am 30. how do people avoid being stuck in a permanent mid life crisis for the rest of their lives? Genuine question.
@letienne I wish I had an answer for that. I think I mostly missed the middle age crisis because, like Peter Pan, I said "I won't grow up!" I went back to grad school and made a career shift though at age 40, because I wanted to. But I skipped over the angst.
@Altivo that sounds like a success story, share how did this career switch come about. I am a sucker for stories with happy endings
@letienne Not a big story. I got a liberal arts degree (high honor) and began seminary studies to be an Episcopal priest. A psychiatrist doing a required evaluation concluded that I was gay (I had no idea) and my scholarship money was cut off. Could have stayed in school but had no funding so I left. Got a job as a library assistant, loved it, wanted to get the master's degree and become a librarian but again, no money. (1)
@Altivo Wow, I did not expect to see genuine struggle to be unearthed. If I may hijack this conversation for a second, sexual minorities really are invisible. Never before joining mastodon had I even have the sense of the extent of LGBTQ+ world. And i doubt it is just the concentration here. The stories one can get the whiffs of, the repression and the forms - furries, artists, sex workers whose language, image.
@letienne Well, not as hidden as we once were. I'm probably more asexual than anything else, but in a world that emphasizes "normal sexuality" to the exclusion of all else, I get read very erraticly. And yes, the discrimination, oppression, and bullying is pervasive and not always subtle.
@Altivo Please ignore me if it is offensive but how does bullying happen these days? I cannot imagine myself in the shoes of women let alone into struggles of people with less common marks of minority. I apologise if I am being offensive.
@letienne Now as for bullying, it is very much real here in the USA. It takes many forms, from actual physical abuse to name calling to social harrassment either in person or online. I was exposed to all of those at one time or other throughout my years in school. Yes, even grad school and after. Much of it seems to be driven by a mental need for the bully to feel superior and to abuse those the bully considers or wishes were inferior. (outsiders, anyone different)
@letienne Now as for bullying, it is very much real here in the USA. It takes many forms, from actual physical abuse to name calling to social harrassment either in person or online. I was exposed to all of those at one time or other throughout my years in school. Yes, even grad school and after. Much of it seems to be driven by a mental need for the bully to feel superior and to abuse those the bully considers or wishes were inferior. (outsiders, anyone different)