All depends on the situation you're in, though people generally end up needing to work all those hours to survive basically. If you have the privilege to work fewer hours and enjoy your life more, it makes perfect sense you'd want to do so. It is inherently an exploitative system, though it's more than just the raw number of hours worked too. Personally, part time wasn't much better than full time for me, because I'd just be scheduled all over the place to patch gaps for full-timers, so I never had any routine consistency. Regardless, I hope things work out for you if you get that position.
Yeah, that's pretty much it. It's easy to fall into the gamification of social media and push yourself in harmful ways. While this comic is exaggeration and obviously doesn't reflect how every person who says this feels, it's really just a way to have a dialogue about why someone apologizes for not doing some personal thing enough. It's not like I'm "immune to propaganda" either here, as I'm also a people pleaser; it's something I have to actively contend with because of my upbringing. Art is just one of those things I've managed to put my foot down over because of what it means to me.
As for the hobby to job thing, I feel a good life lesson would be to never go down that path if possible. You don't get a hobby that is a job, you simply lose a hobby and gain a job. I know this world is disgusting and some may see this their best way to survive in capitalist hell, but that just makes the journey sadder. This is also why when I encounter hobbyists with ways to pay them, I just donate instead of commission. They already gave me joy with their expression, after all.
Yeah, it's almost certainly an over exaggeration of what's actually happening. More than anything I just wanted to dramatize how I read those comments, so I could spark discussion about how social media can make people feel like they have to do things, just because they've done them before. Take breaks, create when you want to, enjoy your hobbies.
Also, thanks! Don't know when the next one will be, but I'll be happy when I'm making it, and I'm grateful others like you are willing to experience it with me.
Perhaps we view the word "owe" differently, because by the sounds of it, you just want people to have empathy for other's needs. In my view, sharing your self expression through art, and those who take the time to partake in that expression, are already engaged in a mutually positive experience together. When I used "owe," I mean a position of entitlement. In the same way I cannot feel entitled to other's attention, they should not be entitled to my expression. My expression is my freedom, and I will not sacrifice the small sliver of that I have.
Your point of doing well by others as you can is absolutely valid of course, and we all can be a part of that. Sharing emotions, stories, kind words, experiences, even a moment of time to listen. I suppose the only thing we likely differ on is how the word "owe" makes us feel. We're all in this together, and I'd love if we all felt encouraged to spread positivity, without feeling awful because you feel what you do is not enough.
Every time I see one I get the same urge. If you're careful and observe the direction of the cactus spines, you can actually give them light pets without getting hurt. You deserve love, even if you're made of spikes on the outside!
Despite that, let's not let billionaire parasites dictate our voices—I will type as I please. They'll have to pry the em dash from my cold, dead hands.
The way I would describe this would be to make another comparison to thinking in general. Do you have an internal narrator, or have songs get stuck in your head? If you do, you are thinking with your "mind's ear," so to speak. If you are at all familiar with this concept, even if you can't imagine absolutely anything you want to hear, it's a great analog for what it's like to use your "mind's eye." In the same way you don't literally hear what you think, you don't actually see what you think either. You just use those parts of the brain to create the sensation and experience it in some way. It doesn't overtake your primary vision and literally activate photon receptors in your eyes, but it can distract you from that sensory information since you're using that area of the brain.
Really I am interested in how literal your girlfriend is there, because if that's not a miscommunication, that just sounds like on-demand hallucination. I could clearly imagine something in front of me. I could manipulate it, I could imagine any of my senses to interact with the object, but at no point does it appear to literally exist in the world as if it's a hallucination. That would be an insane ability to have, and I don't think that's what people generally mean when they use their "mind's eye."
I've seen a number of people mention em dashes specifically—and it makes sense—since most people really don't use them while writing informally. I've been on the em dash train for a long time, along with other special characters like the interrobang. To be blunt, I am not going to let some billionaire corporate garbage control my language; I refuse to self censor the way I actually want to type. I see it as no different from dotting out letters to bypass filters, or creating algorithm "family-friendly" slang. I will not let Sam Altman or Elon Musk or any other disgusting parasite dictate my voice—fuck that.
All depends on the situation you're in, though people generally end up needing to work all those hours to survive basically. If you have the privilege to work fewer hours and enjoy your life more, it makes perfect sense you'd want to do so. It is inherently an exploitative system, though it's more than just the raw number of hours worked too. Personally, part time wasn't much better than full time for me, because I'd just be scheduled all over the place to patch gaps for full-timers, so I never had any routine consistency. Regardless, I hope things work out for you if you get that position.