suicide

I think, most importantly, the prospect of college could make living with your parents infinitely more bearable because you'd know there was an end date.

college might not get you a great job (hasn't for me or most of my friends! even ones who went to good colleges.) - but it's a good experience, can be much much cheaper than you think and no matter what your situation later in life, it'd be better if you had a degree. doesn't matter from where.

Wal-Mart shopping

Wal-Mart is actually a pretty great place to shop.

wrong thread for culture wars

Hi corey, we haven't really spoken on ILX but you seem like good people and I liked your tracks that you posted on IMM, hope things look up for you

boring politics of depression shit that I guess now is not the time for but I wrote before I'd read the revive, sorry:
I appreciate that it is annoying to hear teenagers talk about catching severe depression from a boy not smiling at them, or when people go "oh depression, my cousin had that for a month - but now they're happy and highly successful!", but I also kind of feel that over-policing the word "depression" (a condition we don't understand v well imo) is possibly counterproductive too

or, to put it in a more me-me-me way, I was pretty ill for a long time before I saw a doctor, but I knew that Real Depressives get upset at the word being used lightly and not as a special serious thing that special serious people have, and thought I should stop presuming I might be special when I was really just lazy and dumb and bad at stuff

and, since depressives tend to think that they are lazy and dumb and bad at stuff, maybe it is good not to draw lines with that on the other side

I guess what I'm trying to say is, if you can't make a living doing something you (presumably) hate, then try something you actually care about. I completely understand the need for financial security, but I have this naive belief that pursuing something you love every day has a way of working out somehow, AND making everything else in your life improve exponentially. I'm definitely an advocate for counseling and even medication for this stuff, but so much of it is situational as well (sorry for such a cliche). Sometimes when everything seems broken you only need to fix one thing and the rest seems to sort itself out somehow.

xp - I prefer Target tbh

xp - I prefer Target tbh - the frozen food section has motion sensor lights - it's like being in that "Kitchen of the Future" industrial film from 1960(?)

corey, I just wanna point out to you that 23 isn't even at the starting gate yet. I know it's rough times sometimes but seriously, you gotta take my word for this, you won't even remember 23 in about 3 years. you are just getting your feet under you. so, get them feet under you. my life did not really begin before I was 26, fwiw.

"think, most importantly, the prospect of college could make living with your parents infinitely more bearable because you'd know there was an end date."

and because studying would keep youre thoughts away, at least to some degree from "i hate this town etc" thoughts

corey, I just wanna point out to you that 23 isn't even at the starting gate yet. I know it's rough times sometimes but seriously, you gotta take my word for this, you won't even remember 23 in about 3 years. you are just getting your feet under you. so, get them feet under you. my life did not really begin before I was 26, fwiw.

― gross rainbow of haerosmith (underrated aerosmith albums I have loved), Tuesday, August 10, 2010 6:02 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark Suggest Ban Permalink

yeah. when you said you're 23...i mean it's heartbreaking to me that you're that young and feel like a failure...that is literally impossible as far as i'm concerned. i guess it's easier to say than feel but try not to be so hard on yourself.

oh it's called "Design for Dreaming" - but this is how i feel at Target:

http://www.wetcircuit.com/wp-content/myfotos/designfordreaming/DesignforDreaming00.jpg

Seriously, 23. I mean you're still young enough to have a foppish hairstyle and wear cuban heels! And your friends will all have forgotten about it by the time you hit 30. You have lots of time on your hands and fantastic adventures to come.

i'm 25 and my life is just beginngin

ing
you should get a cat

Wait you're always saying that you're old!

haha when i first found out how old (young) a harbl was i could not believe it because she has such a world-weary outlook <3

i'm old but i still have a long way to go

She is an old soul, it's true. But not really

xp

her & ian both!

Ian should have been born in the 1930s and harbl in the 1950s (in soviet russia)

Now I'd like someone to come on and say 32 isn't old, thanks

:)

it's a cliche but it's true: life is full of changes (and there will be more unknown "failures" or "successes" to come), some good, some bad but sometimes the one that seems good at first arent so good at the end and vice versa.

but corey, it sounds like there are a lot of things that you want to do, that you are interested in - that you haven't even tried yet - so "ending it all" before you even try - well you shouldn't!

-- 32 seems young to me --

Good. I think everyone on here should be comforted by someone else slightly older in succession until Dr. Morbius or aimless comes on and cries.

(Not that I really want that to happen, but this is a joke about old people)

I'm 27 in a week and I feel so fucking old.

man, there are so many things i wish i could go back and tell my 32 year old self -- but i probably wouldn't, tbh -- it's better that i had the crushing realizations i did at 33.

oh...awesome

who is the oldest ilxor?

Steven Shasta, he's about to turn 64

wow - a dinosaur!

garu g's gran

having older friends is really good btw - even if you are incredulous about their assurances of the future, once you get to the point where things are starting to sink in, it isn't so scary because you can say, "Hey, this person went through this, and they made it out okay."

" it's better that i had the crushing realizations i did at 33"

all my life are a series of them, but i got used to it i guess lol

No, I do not know who the oldest person on ILX is. My closest friend here in Los Angeles is 67. He tells me the world is speeding up. He also told me that my best years were ahead of me. That was pretty rad

In terms of posters that currently regularly post, I think it's probably Aimless, who's 55.

if the shit that happened to me when i was 33 and 34 had happened to me when i was 23, i probably would have killed myself - like my 23 year old problems just seemed so insignificant in comparison

I love how we treat him as a wise old man, but my mom is that age and I don't consider her old xp

Shhhhh Aimless is having afternoon nap. Start making the oatmeal for when he wakes up and has another proverb for us.

corey if you want to know more about city colleges/other community colleges, i'm here in chicago. webmail me and we can talk about how to get some transferable credits under your belt without accumulating any debt. (i teach at a community college)

this is what you should be doing at this point, not despairing or starving. ps i am days away from being 35 so i am basically a village elder at this point.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vINoPRPHXKY

35 is good, I recommend it!

Love is good, i recommend it!

suicide is not a good idea, i wouldn't recommend it - unless you're dying of a v v painful incurable physical illness

lol jaymc.xls strikes again! xposts

one of my bestest friends is 66. He's an awesome dude. several of my other friends were breeding in their 20s and never left their hometowns. most of my friends are underemployed and/or overeducated people who I think should have made more of their lives but who mostly seem happy with their lots.

Um, point is, expectations and preconceptions (and I had FUCKLOADS of them when I was 23, which is why I ended up a gibbering wreck in hospital thinking I was never going to do anything with my life) are a surefire way to let-down. I never did do anything really with my life, probably never will, but I have a good life and good friends and have come to terms with that as being enough, despite seeing my classmates going on to stride the world like a colossus while I answer phones for teenagers earning twice my salary. I'm 37, btw.

Oh, and I wish I'd had the collective wisdom of ILX when I was young and directionless. You guys are ace. I had to do all this shit on my own!

Love is good, i recommend it!

oh gosh well that's that sorted out then

I'm 27 in a week and I feel so fucking old.

when people say shit like this I want to say to them: I remember how you feel, but can you grasp that pretty much all my dreams came true after I turned 30? get the fuck out of your twenties. they are too stressful. later days is where it's at imo

er, undereducated. I don't think any of my friends are too smart, that's like the worst compliment ever. And I doubt they think they should have made more of their lives, I just think my friends are ace people who deserve better. I didn't explain that very well. Luckily the people to whom I refer will not be reading this.

xposts to my own directionless witterings

and if all those dreams don't come true, you end up with different dreams - or you can get hit by a bus or die when your tour van rolls over because a dude in the band you are touring with falls asleep at the wheel