Frownland

I've seen several shows with no encore. I'm up for it if the artist is.

Yep, just turn your brightness down and don't try to be too obstructive.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

Frownland

I say suck my dick and get to the show earlier for a spot closer to the front unless you're a midget basically. They have a hard time seeing over crowds, I never get enough legroom in virtually any vehicle. It's a tradeoff. Also learn how to stagger the audience and find a view in between two people instead of standing directly behind someone like a dummy.

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

The Batlord

I feel that. My mother came from a middle class background but is kind of a cluster**** and had a kid she couldn't afford and didn't know how to raise. She tried her ass off to get where she got and I respect how much someone so much like me achieved but honestly I think she wasn't served well by coming from such a middle class, gotta ****ing go to college to be considered a worthwhile human being background, because I don't think it was ever really her and it did a number on the kind of person she thought she should be.

Honestly I think the concept of the middle class sounds better than it is in real life. The human race has lived for thousands of years basically with haves and have nots but now we have a massive group of people who are essentially have nots who don't know how to be haves but who think that is the only way to be worthwhile, and the wasteful consumption mentality of capitalism is a fate they can't see that will ultimately lead them to what is slowly happening to them right now: a lessening of the middle class until the excesses of capitalism collapse in on themselves and we're left with the end of the Roman Empire.

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jwb

I feel differently. It's a complex I've had most of my life. I went and visited my cousins and I could instantly see their lives were better. And they weren't even rich, just middle class. But i always sorta resented being denied that. Being evicted constantly. Going to dangerous schools. Getting jumped on the way home. Having ****ty clothes. Having crackheads break into my house and break my sister's piggy bank for the change inside. I resented it.

I still resent it. I hate poor people tbh.

jwb

it was and it wasn't

I highlighted the bad parts

I had a lot of fun in my childhood too... And a lot of freedom... And did a lot of questionable ****

But i dunno especially when I got older into middle school and high school years I felt like white suburbia looked like a paradise.

It's probably the grass is always greener syndrome but I always felt it would be better. And I hate when people cite their "working class roots" like it's some sort of badge. Poor people are the most obsessed with money we just suck at managing it. There's nothing noble about it at all.

The Batlord

I won't say I have the opposite, but my mother's not quite middle class life never interfered with me experiencing my larger family's middle class life, and it's ****ing boring. Yeah, financial stability seems great. Really ****ing great. I've seen enough of it to know that not having to worry whether you can justify this or that purchase is pretty nice and takes a lot of the edge off of life.

But that's literally all it does. It doesn't actually make your life more fulfilling. After the benefit of not worrying about your next paycheck it's just the opportunity for more distractions. You can take a vacation to distract yourself from the stress of life. You can do this or that activity to distract yourself. You can have a bigger house to distract yourself. You can have a painting in the hallway to distract yourself. You can have a bigger TV to distract yourself. But you're still a cluster****, your family is just as subject to you being a cluster****, and none of the distractions amount to any kind of culture that might warm your soul. It's just ****ty paintings in the hallway. Middle class life more than anything else is just ****ty paintings in the hallway. So many ****ty paintings in the hallway. A middle class home is just a doctor's office with beds.

And when your kids grow up they'll either recognize the empty paintings in the hallway and yearn for something authentic and become someone who wanta to see a gluegrass show even though they don't even listen to bluegrass or they'll just become soulless stockbrokers or something.

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jwb

I've heard this complaint before. I'll just say... This is something that will always fall deaf on broke ears. "All it does is stop you from having to worry about finances." This is literally everything to someone struggling to keep their head above water. So to us all that **** about emptiness and lack of meaning sounds like people who have no actual problems and start inventing ****.

I know money doesn't buy happiness. But neither does poverty. At least money buys some other ****.

Frownland

Bluegrass is tight though

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Studies show that when a given norm is changed in the face of the unchanging, the remaining contradictions will parallel the truth.

The Batlord

Which is something I ****ing said. I'm not arguing for being poor. I'm arguing that not being poor is still empty, just in a different way. It's all empty unless you have a different approach than just "If I make more money everything will be better." Human beings evolved to live in scarcity, so when we don't have scarcity we're living in a way we weren't evolved to live. So should it be a surprise that having enough money isn't fulfilling all by itself?

All ****ing day I've been fantasizing about having a sailboat and sailing across the world and living a life of adventure because the thought of having enough money to live comfortably is ****ing empty unless I can do something challenging and exciting with it. And living a comfortable middle class life that is just paying bills, living in a house, and raising kids with enough money to do so is in no way challenging or exciting to my scarcity instincts so of course it is going to be an empty existence. So I might as well buy a sailboat and have to deal with the challenge of sailing.

Modern middle class society is ****ing soulless and pointless.

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jwb

I'm arguing that not being poor > being poor