u/Sudden_Doughnut_8741

I feel like people were concerned about overpopulation when I was younger. I remember when it was a huge deal when we hit 6 billion and a lot of people were talking at that time about us reaching the limits of how many people the earth can sustain.

Now we’re at more than 8 billion, food insecurity is growing, resource management is becoming a more normal thing for literally everyone, and most people don’t see a reasonable path to being able to afford a home and to have a family.

Wouldn’t a lot of these problems be solved by fewer people having kids? I’m not saying that we should even be discouraging people from having kids. I’m saying that I don’t understand why it’s a problem that more people than usual might have decided on their own that it isn’t for them. Seems like a slowdown in population growth could very well lead to a more sustainable life for everyone here.

EDIT: This isn’t about labels. I don’t feel like I need to label everything. I just thought it would be interesting to discuss what ties it all together, because for some reason today I’m having some trouble identifying what that is.

I’ve been a death metal singer and guitarist for most of my life after age 16 or so, and I’m almost 40. When I was young, I had this impression that death metal was essentially stuff like cannibal corpse. Low growled vocals, dark chainsaw riffs, lyrics about brutality, and blasting war drums.

As I started playing it more and listening to it more, I learned just how in depth the genre is and what makes a sound part of it and its many subgenres.

But lately I guess I’m looking at all of it and wondering what it actually is. I’m not a gatekeeper-type, but there are things they definitely make something one thing and not another. Chicken is not a subgenre of beef. It isn’t just beef with wings. It’s its own thing. It wouldn’t be gatekeeping to say that chicken is not the same thing as beef.

I can listen to any type of black metal and immediately go “that’s black metal.” They could combine it with synth pop and I’d be able to identify right away that they’re combining it with black metal. It has a very distinctive sound to me.

When I listen to Grave, Death, At The Gates, Behemoth, and Deicide, I hear 5 totally different types of music these days. Sure they have similarities, and I don’t think any of them would argue that they’re making the same music as each other, plus any of them that aren’t actively trying to make what they or what they think others would consider “pure” or “true” death metal tend to have no problem saying something like “it’s melodic/blackened/whatever death metal.” So I’m not a purist about it, but sometimes it seems like one of those elusive things that anyone can just say they make despite it sounding nothing like what I picture death metal being in my head.

If Death is “true” death metal, then in my mind stuff like Cannibal Corpse and Deicide is a completely different type of music, and stuff like Obscura and Obituary are actually closer to the different things that make Death death metal, based on the music made by Death. And I’m not saying that the band Death is the exclusive band to compare a band to when determining if they made death metal. HOWEVER, they are one of the few bands that I feel like the vast majority of death metal fans will say is absolutely, without question, a death metal band.

And none of this is an effort to talk negatively about Cannibal Corpse and Deicide. I love them both. But they’re what I grew up thinking death metal was before I really dug into the genre, and now I guess I know so much about the genre that I barely even know what it is anymore.

Hoping to discuss this.

I’ve been a death metal singer and guitarist for most of my life after age 16 or so, and I’m almost 40. When I was young, I had this impression that death metal was essentially stuff like cannibal corpse. Low growled vocals, dark chainsaw riffs, lyrics about brutality, and blasting war drums.

As I started playing it more and listening to it more, I learned just how in depth the genre is and what makes a sound part of it and its many subgenres.

But lately I guess I’m looking at all of it and wondering what it actually is. I’m not a gatekeeper-type, but there are things they definitely make something one thing and not another. Chicken is not a subgenre of beef. It isn’t just beef with wings. It’s its own thing. It wouldn’t be gatekeeping to say that chicken is not the same thing as beef.

When I listen to Grave, Death, At The Gates, Behemoth, and Deicide, I hear 5 totally different types of music these days. Sure they have similarities, and I don’t think any of them would argue that they’re making the same music as each other, plus any of them that aren’t actively trying to make what they or what they think others would consider “pure” or “true” death metal tend to have no problem saying something like “it’s melodic/blackened/whatever death metal.” So I’m not a purist about it, but sometimes it seems like one of those elusive things that anyone can just say they make despite it sounding nothing like what I picture death metal being in my head.

If Death is “true” death metal, then in my mind stuff like Cannibal Corpse and Deicide is a completely different type of music, and stuff like Obscura and Obituary are actually closer to the different things that make Death death metal, based on the band Death.

And none of this is an effort to talk negatively about Cannibal Corpse and Deicide. I love them both. But they’re what I grew up thinking death metal was before I really dug into the genre, and now I guess I know so much about the genre that I barely even know what it is anymore.

Hoping to discuss this.

I’ve had this theory for a while now that one of the main causes of misery is wishing you had something that you don’t. I’m not saying this is a universal thing, and I know there are lots of reasons that people can be miserable. However, I honestly think that this is a major one that a lot of misery can be kind of broken down into.

And regarding parenthood, it’s something people talk about a lot. How will I find time for sex? How will I find time for my hobbies? How will I keep up my gym routine?

These are legitimate questions, but they kind of presuppose that having a kid a) takes 100% of your time, and b) that there’s a whole lot that you can’t do with your kid.

Obviously there are plenty of things you can’t do with your kid. This is an awful transition, but when it comes to sex with your partner, obviously this is something you do when your kids are asleep or someone is watching them. Probably can’t bring your kid to the gym with you because of gym rules and also it doesn’t seem super safe to have your kid around really heavy weights and consumer machinery.

But also, if you have even a small home gym then kids love doing things their parents are doing, so you can totally stretch with your kid, do some bodyweight exercises together, do some cardio stuff together, and if you lift weights then you can give your kid like 5lb weights and that’s totally safe for them. My kid loves to pretend that she’s super strong by curling and pressing them. It’s adorable and while she’s doing that it gives me the opportunity to do my workout.

I think people really minimize how much you can still do with your kid. If you’re a musician, you can get your kid into music and play with your kid. If you have to go to the store, you can bring your kid with you. If you like to hike, you may have to choose some safer trails at first but you can bring your kid with you.

When I stopped wishing that I was in a position in life where I could travel more, or that I could maybe still have an opportunity to pursue music more seriously, or maybe buy a motorcycle, and instead started actively wishing for exactly what I have to be the best it could possibly be, I found a type of happiness that I never experienced before. It didn’t feel like settling at all, and I know what that feels like. I’ve settled for women and jobs way too often. This felt more like leaning in.

When I wanted to pursue music more seriously, I don’t think I ever truly leaned in to actually just making the most of making music. I think I was always thinking about the experience of touring, meeting people, being on stage, etc. I don’t regret not making a career out of music, but I guess I wonder what things in my life I thought I really wanted to do but never actually committed to.

I still make music, and now I also am a game developer. My kid LOVES watching me make games and playing them with me as we go. It’s educational but it’s also captivating and it’s something we’re able to do together. The things that I’m really passionate about never went away and I don’t even really have to do them less. When I had more time to myself before becoming a dad, I’d spend all day on something and have very little to show for it. Now if I have an hour to myself while my kid is taking a bath, I feel like I accomplish more in that hour than I could in a week before fatherhood. Being able to do some of this stuff together is just the icing on top.

Maybe I was just always meant to be a dad. Maybe I never fully committed to anything because it never felt as important to me as being a dad does. Either way, this is better than anything I’ve ever done, and I hope more of us totally lean into it, and let the joy of doing so wash over us.

I have seen this a lot of times now. “Has anyone ever really gotten a job on LinkedIn?” is a question I feel like I read once every couple of weeks.

Yes, I’ve gotten like 5 jobs off of LinkedIn over the years. I’ve also gotten people jobs by contacting them on LinkedIn about a job I have open.

I mean sure some skillsets aren’t the kind that people have LinkedIn profiles for, but if it’s a common position people are on LinkedIn for then those people are getting jobs all the time through LinkedIn.

And yeah LinkedIn sucks and there are thousands of scammers and fake jobs. But there are also thousands of real people and real jobs. So people get jobs from LinkedIn all the time.

Are people seriously not being constantly messaged by recruiters?

I remember the first time I saw any of this stuff, I could tell that they rented everything they had around them and they paid everyone to be in the videos. The way they push sales for their products and financial services also sounded exactly like a few pitches I’ve heard for MLMs.

It was always extremely clear to me that their whole thing is a self serving pitch, and that the people who they’re appealing to is a market. If that market dries up somehow, they’d stop saying the things they’re saying. None of them believe in anything other than marketing.

And it isn’t even that they’re wrong about everything. They say correct things from time to time. Looks matter, for example. I think they take it to an unnecessary extreme, but I think it’s good to acknowledge that your life improves when you look better. But regarding the extremes of this, they’re wrong about you needing to go as far with it as they say you do. So it always sounded more to me like someone saying “2+2 is 4.” Yeah dude, you’re right, obviously… not sure why you think being right about that would make anyone think you’re right about everything else.

I’m not sure what leads to someone falling for them.

I’m almost 40 and I’ve struggled with ADHD, anxiety, and being on the autism spectrum for all of my life, and I’ve also been through some things that have resulted in me getting treatment for trauma.

I remember all of this being way more of a struggle when I was younger. Through a lot of work, I can honestly say that in the last 5 years or so all of these things are way more of a positive in my life than a negative now. I can focus, I don’t beat myself up when I get something wrong, and my anxiety is more so just a strong situational awareness now.

I attribute a lot of my success in getting to where I am to subreddits and groups for people that are still struggling with these conditions, but after I felt like I didn’t need them as much anymore I found that my advice was not what people were looking for even if they said they wanted help. A lot of people told me “then what you were going through must not have been so bad, if you’re doing so well now.” I’m not saying that I’ve never interacted with people who don’t seem as high functioning as me, but wow this can really hurt when I hear it. Years of struggling silently until I found these groups, barely accomplishing the basics, and I can’t say I’ve ever heard someone talk about what they’ve struggled with and overcome and had an urge to tell them that it must not have been so bad for them.

Anyway, I say all this just to say that I’m hoping to connect with people who have learned to take the good with the bad. It isn’t all good or anything like that. I just know now how to use the good and kind of direct the bad through a creative outlet. At some point this became a goal for me, and I was able to use my conditions to figure out how to do that. Now I’m wondering how many others have done the same.

I’m almost 40 and I’ve struggled with ADHD, anxiety, and being on the autism spectrum for all of my life, and I’ve also been through some things that have resulted in me getting treatment for trauma.

I remember all of this being way more of a struggle when I was younger. Through a lot of work, I can honestly say that in the last 5 years or so all of these things are way more of a positive in my life than a negative now. I can focus, I don’t beat myself up when I get something wrong, and my anxiety is more so just a strong situational awareness now.

I attribute a lot of my success in getting to where I am to subreddits and groups for people that are still struggling with these conditions, but after I felt like I didn’t need them as much anymore I found that my advice was not what people were looking for even if they said they wanted help. A lot of people told me “then what you were going through must not have been so bad, if you’re doing so well now.” I’m not saying that I’ve never interacted with people who don’t seem as high functioning as me, but wow this can really hurt when I hear it. Years of struggling silently until I found these groups, barely accomplishing the basics, and I can’t say I’ve ever heard someone talk about what they’ve struggled with and overcome and had an urge to tell them that it must not have been so bad for them.

Anyway, I say all this just to say that I’m hoping to connect with people who have learned to take the good with the bad. It isn’t all good or anything like that. I just know now how to use the good and kind of direct the bad through a creative outlet. At some point this became a goal for me, and I was able to use my conditions to figure out how to do that. Now I’m wondering how many others have done the same.

I’ve always been inspired by people who didn’t let their disability get in the way of their success. I also know that it’s absolutely possible to have various mental health conditions and not only lead a happy, productive life, but also essentially harness things from those conditions and learn how to handle the negatives in such a way that not only are they not debilitating, but they’re basically seen as acceptable costs to have the positives.

I want to be around more of these people.