I have two cars, but I actually hate cars.

I chose to have a house in the mountains, but I hate snow.

I work out hard and have abs that I show off, but people who show off their abs annoy me.

I’m a writer and make income doing it in addition to my retirement pension, but writers annoy me and I never tell my friends that I’m a writer.

I also paint and have had my stuff in some galleries, but artists annoy me and I never tell any of my friends that I paint.

I’ve chosen all those things. Not by necessity, but just choice. Can you be a contrarian to your own views or does that definition have to involve opposing someone else’s views just to troll?

  • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
    3·
    3 days ago

    I choose not to do those things then get annoyed about it.

    … Then you are either procrastinating, at best, or simply perpetuating situations that allow you to be annoyed purely for the sake of preferring to be constantly annoyed, at worst.

    Here let me try something, and this isn’t hypothetical, this is completely serious:

    I used to have a career as a data analyst and database administrator.

    Two years ago I was assaulted and held hostage in my own apartment for a week, starved and beaten.

    I survived, but came out of it absurdly injured, couldn’t work, ended up evicted, homeless, car got stolen, I would have died if I didn’t manage to qualify for SSDI.

    I’ve just been doing my own Physical Therapy for a bit more than a year now, due to being too poor to afford professional PT, and besides, I’d have to walk, on my crippled legs, to get to the PT, as I have no car, and there is very poor bus service where I eventually ended up, a literal roach motel that I can just barely qualify to rent with my SSDI payment.

    Would you give me one of your cars?

    Or would you rather continue to be annoyed by its uneccessary existence?

    • Universal Monk@lemmy.kya.moeOPEnglish
      21·
      3 days ago

      Dude, you just made me shook. This may be one of the most powerful responses I have seen on the interwebs.

      First, I am sorry that happened to you. That’s fucking horrible and it’s made me realize that I truly have nothing with bitching about. You actually have real issue. I just bitch and moan.

      And no, I can’t give you a car. I’m sorry. I can’t come to terms with getting rid of them for whatever reason.

      But also, both are over 10 years old, so they aren’t anything awesome.

      I’m truly sorry for your loss.

      DM me. I would like to help another way though.

      • sp3ctr4l@lemmy.zipEnglish
        2·
        3 days ago

        Well firstly, I appreciate your sympathy, truly.

        Secondly… I kind of feel bad for springing that on you, as seriously contemplating a summary of what I’ve been through does seem to be genuinely shocking and perhaps even traumatizing to many people…

        … but at the same time, it is what I’ve survived, it does provide an explanation of my … rather curt and extremely forward, no bullshit/no filter assessment, and it does seem to have prompted a perspective shift in yourself.

        Which leads me to: If you really do want to help me in another way, but you really can’t part with your particular cars…

        Then it isn’t just a trivial choice or lack thereof that prevents you from parting with them. You say they are over 10 years old, maybe you’re proud they’re still in decent running order, you’re sentimental about them in some way, proud of them in a …reliable, but graying mare that’s still got a few years left in her kind of way.

        They’re valuable to you in a way more serious than at least I initially gathered from what you wrote.

        I hadn’t seen the other comments you’d written in this thread until now, it seems that at bare minimum, at least some kind of car is an actual necessity and not a choice, that you don’t actually hate your snowy home that much, that you are actually particularly attached to your specific cars.

        So after saying all of that, I apologize for being too harsh… I could have been more inquisitive and less accusatory. I took your main post extremely literally… I should have been more charitable.

        Spending a good while on the street has left me suspicious and critical… probably doesn’t help that that is on top of myself being a hyperliteral Autist.

        As for dming you, give me a bit of time. I use Thunder on a shit tier gas station phone to interact with lemmy, and it doesn’t seem to really … do DMs properly.

        Lemme aee if Voyager or Jerboa or something else actually does DMs correctly.

        • Universal Monk@lemmy.kya.moeOPEnglish
          31·
          2 days ago

          No worries, mate. I’m never gonna rag on someone for being honest. I appreciate your bluntness. All good!