Dammit, I hated down voting this because I agree wholeheartedly.

But this is a common sentiment, it just isn’t getting reported about as heavily as all the advertising disguised as reporting. Even outside of lemmy, people are removeding about exactly this. Not just online either, and not just tech minded people.

Oh no, the things I like aren’t in pop culture currently! That must mean other people suck, rather than just being that trends shift constantly.

I hate to say this, but grow up. Whatever you think of your favorites, nobody else is obliged to think the same, and them not liking has nothing to do with them being dreamers or not. The whole concept is absurd in the first place, and people have been saying the same thing about whatever is currently popular instead of what was popular when they were young since the beginning of recorded music. I suspect something similar was in place before then too.

Besides, you picked one band that’s still hugely influential and popular. The other one, Crimson, less so, but still a fairly influential band in the right circles.

But, I notice you didn’t harken back to the jazz era, or classical. Why didn’t whatever your generation is show how great a bunch of dreamers they were/are by digging back into that? Or into the blues mosaic that led to rock, which led to prog rock? There’s a whole lot of dreamers you skipped in your listing.

Hell, you entirely ignored folk music as it existed before recording, which was and is the heart of democratized music performed by small groups rather than big orchestras or solely for the enjoyment of the wealthy.

Which is ignoring that you assume wrongly that more modern forms of music have some kind of hole in them where no insight exists. Which is outright blind and deaf. You think hip-hop doesn’t give insight into the human condition? Especially when it’s addressing systemic injustice and the state of society’s denigration of people of color?

Nah, dude, this post, your hot take on music? It points to you lacking insight, to you lack imagination and thought beyond whatever it is that gets your jollies.

That’s what I was going to point out lol

I’m not sure I have anything that can help you directly. Things are looking ugly as hell right now, but it doesn’t look like most people here with a green card are going to be treated badly. At least not yet.

But more in general, the way I’m coping is multi tiered.

The primary is by being ready for what I can be ready for. The secondary is helping other people be as ready as they can be (though that’s a fucking minimum right now, as I’m recovering from an injury). Third is local organization and planning, which I can do while injured at least.

Then there’s just getting on with life as best I can. I kiss my wife, hug my kid, pet my chickens, fuck around on lemmy, whatever.

That last, that’s what I’d suggest you focus on. Nobody ever has a promise of tomorrow. You could get struck by lightning, hit by a car, whatever. Worrying about the governmental shit beyond your ability to fight it if the fight pops off is pointless. Just enjoy the now, and be prepared as best you can.

I’m a little late to the party, I’ve written and edited four books, plus numerous short stories on Linux mint. Libreoffice does the job just fine, as others already mentioned.

The great thing about starting out is that it’s pretty easy to try whatever distributions you want, piddle around a little, and choose what you like best. You’re leaning towards mint, and that’s actually what I use, and have used.

It’s also a great beginner’s distro because it’s essentially plug and play. You install, open up, and you can jump right into basic activities with minimum effort. Which means that the Linux learning curve is much lighter than you’d think because you’ll be working while you learn.

No bullshit, my mom transitioned to mint in one day. Only hurdles were installing chrome, because that’s what she likes, and the five hours she took tweaking the theme. She’s a low needs user: browser, email, pictures. Her PC was choking on Windows 10 after the “upgrade” years ago, and wanted to try something else just for the hell of it. Now she does her own updates, doesn’t even bother to call me.

As a side note, I feel you. The last few years have been brutal. We’re all feeling some degree of stress from it, but those of us with preexisting issues end up a notch higher than we should be. It ain’t easy, but none of us are really alone in the struggle.

Ahhh, considering the rules of the community, the nature of the post itself, that’s ptb.

I can’t say it’s PTB, just ptb, because it’s more stupid than serious power tripping in the literal sense, but why the fuck that comment was the one to get removed out of all the rest, I have no clue.

Definitely overreach, jokes are specifically allowed, and nothing in that comment approaches anything resembling rudeness to another user, there’s no hidden bigotry, and it’s a fucking meme C/. Like, damn.

Yeah, not every joke hits, but that’s for votes to sort out.

However, fuck your title here. There’s times and places where that kind of joke is fine, but in a title on a community that isn’t humor based ain’t it

Ehhh, I’m torn on the vote for this

On One hand, it is unpopular, in that nobody really thinks this. It’s also unpopular because I think most people, if not damn near everyone, would think it’s stupid and reject it entirely based on the obvious flaws in the comparison even if they didn’t disagree.

However, the post looks like rage bait, and you complained about voting, then you veer into mild nastiness. Which makes it likely the post was rage bait.

If you hadn’t edited in the crap, I’d have up voted because the original post was a perfect fit for the C/. But, dude, that edit is just lame. So I had to down vote.

You make a post in a community like this, you take the votes as they come. You don’t whine about them, and you don’t turn it into some kind of ego weirdness.

Man, I love that song.

Isbell is a jerk, but he’s a fucking poet for sure

Not really, but there’s a few I can’t listen to when I drive because I know I’m going to cry, and that ain’t safe

Travelin soldier, the Dixie chicks version is a big one.

Then there’s still my hero, by jellyroll. I’m dealing with some of that stuff now, and it’s fucking brutal.

There’s others, because I’m a sappy old bastard, but I don’t reckon you want a big list

Okay, okay, enough of this.

I’m going to have to poke myself in the eye to deal with the level of cute here.

Not fair

Ooo, yeah, and then you lick it, then stick your tongue right into the sticky center and ream it out like it owes you money

I dunno, looks like some blatant self promotion at the very least.

My kid’s cat used to do that. She’d rub herself on a slicker brush forever if you’d sit and let her.

Well, it reads as just silly kid stuff. Kids do dumb shit because they’re kids.

The important part is whether or not it was traumatic to you, not whether it was sexual, or abuse, or sexual abuse.

It doesn’t seem like it did. It seems more like it was just weird and that was that, and that you’re looking back on it as something more than it was then. This isn’t to minimize your experiences, it’s just saying that your phrasing and the question itself point towards it not being traumatic at the time.

Was it inappropriate? Yeah, but it’s very likely nothing bad was meant by it. Even if it was sexual on his end, that doesn’t mean he was intentionally breaking consent in a conscious way, or that kids making mistakes like that is inherently a bad thing overall. Something can be inappropriate, but not wrong because if someone lacks the capacity to understand that it’s wrong, it just isn’t the same thing as when they do, and choose to perform a hurtful act.

Me? I think I’d just let it go and not worry about it if possible. If it isn’t possible, then it might mean there’s issues with it that need resolution with external help, so the attempt to do so kinda serves as a self diagnosis. If you’re able to easily put it aside, then it wasn’t traumatic (or not enough to matter).

It may help you to know that that kind of thing is super common. Over on reddit, there was a sub called morbid questions, and I couldn’t begin to tell you how often people would ask what you’re asking, with the same or similar circumstances. Kids get dumb ideas, and lack the inhibition to not act on it. Kids can engage in sexual abuse, yes, but there is a difference between that and just doing something rude like slapping an ass. It’s about intent, extent, and situation.

It may also help to know that, even if your friend did intend it as a sexual act, and did so knowing that it wasn’t acceptable behavior, that you aren’t obligated to feel any specific way about it. You don’t have to feel the same as someone else might; you don’t have to be okay with it because someone else is, you don’t have to be upset because someone else is. Your experience is yours.

Okay, can we just sit back and recognize the beauty in that?

Like, if you’re into guys, that’s a god damn beefcake buffet right there. Freddie was pulling some damn fine tail

Man, my one grandmother loved Liberace.

And you’re right, dude was a genius on the keys. Brilliant performer.

It isn’t like nobody knew he was gay. But his fans did not give a shit, including my grandmother who was actually a bit of a bigot about that. Not venomous or anything, but definitely not approving, and prone to prejudice. But he was never anything but an idol to her, even with her believing he was gay.

That’s how good a performer he was.

Eh, yeah, a bit of a jerk.

It’s not the facts that matter, it’s how you deliver them. If you don’t focus on what the kid doesn’t have, and focus on what they’d have to do to make it, you’d get the same thing done.

If you add in that they’re expected, while still under your responsibility, to also work towards a secondary goal that’s within reach without needing a ton of luck on top of talent, you set them up to both work on their dream and have a realistic fallback plan.

Doesn’t really matter what it is, when the kid’s dream is one that they can’t make it purely by working at it, it’s our job to prepare them for the possibility of success, no matter how unlikely, as well as presenting reality.

I partially raised a nephew years ago. He wanted to be a musician or a pro skater. Talented in both (more as a musician), but both of those fields take more than ability to make work. Even skating, which isn’t mostly about who you know and what contacts you can make, you gotta bust your ass every single day practicing like a pro does, and start competing. I explained all that, showed him how to find information for himself, and said he still had to make school his first priority until he was an adult.

Well, turns out he didn’t actually like competing, so skating went to the wayside a year or so later.

He started focusing more on music, and started doing small shows here and there, and liked it. But he did hit that wall where you have to not just hustle, but have the right contacts, or make them. So he switched gears like a lot of creative sorts do and got a job he thought might be interesting in the short term while he worked at music as a secondary.

He ended up enjoying that job enough that he decided to do music more as a hobby. Still does. He still skates too, and he’s almost in his thirties now. He’s also starting his own business in the industry he liked, and went to school to get a basic business degree per my advice.

You don’t have to ride their ass, or insist that they abandon a dream. You just have to give them the best advice you can, and let them do their thing as long as they’re meeting core necessities along the way.

It’s even perfectly fine to tell them that there’s limits to what you’ll do and provide while they chase a dream; support doesn’t mean you have to let them stay in the basement with no actual source of self support on a practical level. It just means that you give them the room to get there if they can while also navigating regular life.

Hell, it’s perfectly fine to be blunt about their chances of making it at whatever. Telling your kid that he’d have to reach a level of skill that would take more work than realistically possible is fine. Telling him that he’s got an incredibly long and impractical road ahead of him if he decides to try is fine. And it’s definitely fine to say that he’s got to do it on his own merits, without any nepotism or favors involved. You can even give an honest evaluation of his skills and athleticism, though you gotta be gentle with that.

What never works is telling than that they can’t, that it’s utterly out of the question and you’ll never have their back. That’s a recipe for a kid you never get to see as an adult.

Shit, man, who says you’re even right? Get some outside opinions on the kid’s skills if you’re going to play the heavy and be sure you’re right.

Yup

Gigolo?

Just say “donde estas la bibliotequa?”