I feel so trapped...

For me, it was somewhat of a wakeup call, because it made me realise just how isolated I actually was when lockdown kicked in and literally nothing changed for me. I at least took the opportunity to finally start fiction writing, thats something I am proud of.

Sadly I am inclined to agree. When life goes back to normal, I feel the majority will simply go back to their lives and the heaps of lonely people will go on being ignored. Its scientifically proven that loneliness literally makes you less healthy mentally and physically, and can seriously damage quality of life.

 

I'd say the best thing maybe that I just finished the longest book I've ever read just yesterday. It's "The Snowball" the biography of Warren Buffet. Also, probably the game development stuff. I've always been into game dev since I was like 9 but gave up on it when people at school made fun of me for it when I was 13. But finishing the Udemy course over last fall renewed my zest for game dev and now I'm working on my first video game

Hbu what have you been doing to stay active during quarantine?

 

I don't if I am right or not but from my point of view loneliness can give us time to explore ourselves

 

By the way anyone who is interested can join this forum of accountability partners
https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/i-want-accountability-partner.302110/

 

Thanks

 

I feel like its not one single factor, but a combination of many.

Society as a whole has been reaching a stage where technology can replace almost all forms of human contact and interaction. You can work from home, have almost everything you would ever need delivered right to your door, you cam simulate friendship by watching YouTube videos and can keep your brain occupied with videogames, TV and movies. PMO addiction is obviously a part of this, as that is just a substitute for actually meeting a man/woman and having a real relationship and having a fulfilling romantic and sexual life. The problem is, the human brain ultimately knows that these things arent a true replacement for the real thing and so they arent as satisfying in the long term. The longer it goes on, the worse it becomes. Its proven scientifically that chronic, unwanted solitude is bad for you.

I also feel like society is becoming more cold and uncaring. There are still a lot of people who do care, but due to the way life is, they cant afford to actually do anything. Everyone else doesnt care at all, and many would rather laugh at those who are lonely instead of trying to at least understand them, let alone help them. Look at the proliferation of "incels," a lot of whom are nothing more than people who have had their souls ground into dust by loneliness and maybe even mental illness. Many are not sexist, or hateful, they are just normal people who have failed at love. Many incels are just lonely people, and lonely people used to simply be excluded but left alone, now they are actively attacked and belittled for no real reason other than they are an easy target, which makes people who fall into this group feel even worse. The gulf between those who have it and those who dont is becoming wider and wider and I fear it will get worse because no serious effort is being made to reverse the problem.

Personally, and I can only speak for myself, if I didn't have my writing, I would be so miserable I dont think I would be able to function. Its one of few things that give me purpose and it grounds me. I mention myself, once again not to garner pity, but to highlight the fact that many are in a way worse situation than me, because while I have this one thing to keep me motivated, many have nothing at all.

 

https://forum.nofap.com/index.php?threads/becoming-the-writer-i-want-to-be.268267/ If you wish, you can take a look at this ongoing thread me and a few others are part of. Its all about charting progress and motivating each other.

 

Oh my god, you're right, Stenacity would make an awesome name! And the crowd goes wild!! You would have to wear cheetah print and wild makeup. I'd get a perm even. Because hair!

And it's true. There is no such thing as too much glitter. I used to make things like body scrubs, lotion bars, and bath bombs. I was sooooo happy when I found a good source of biodegradable glitter and mica "shimmers". Now I have a place to get environmentally responsible glitter in bulk!

I'm pretty sure we'd be in one of the lesser known circles of hell. The only reason Dante didn't write about it was because Italy hadn't discovered tacos yet. He didn't know how deprived he was.

Twisted Sister is truly epic. I don't know how they packed so much awesome into their look and music, but they are are the distillation of the era/genre IMHO because you can tell from their videos they obviously have a sense of humor about it as well!

The eyeshadow is a must! We're not going to take quarantine anymore some day soon! Like... June!

I guess we can practice our eyeshadow in the meantime... That counts as personal development and enrichment, right??

 

Just read and am replying to the OP though in a quick scan it sounds like there's some healthy creative outlet, but as far as the original point I actually think there is a way to overcome/sustain this social isolation, whether people will do it for each other is what I don't have so much confidence in.

The thing is I KNOW it can be done with just online friends, I've done it before. That's how much time I used to spend talking to people online. The problem is over the decades online conversation has gotten shorter and peoples attention span seems to develop in the same way. In retrospect I made some really good friends that I could have EASILY kept in touch with, but I took it for granted because it's online and I guess thinking it's all available all the time it'll never go away, not so. Just one example there was a girl from Yahoo chat in the UK, after not being in that room for like a year at least she still remembered me right away - but I was like all emotionally detached, and didn't have the perspective of how much all that history is worth. And now, people are mostly into short little fairly meaningless exchanges and not a sustained long term conversation. It's not everyone of course, but I think it's definitely the majority. And I don't think people realize how far it has fallen in terms of the norm so they don't know it can be any better since it's just what everybody does for the most part. I'm talking about talking with just one person for hours on end just typing, as far as I know that kind of attention is just extremely rare now.

Also, most people probably don't recognize it really needs to be a continuous real time interaction. It just doesn't have the same effect when you just write a message on a forum.

 

Well unfortunately that was my own fault, part of it is how they closed down Yahoo chat so I won't get another chance to make contact, although the possibility existed that if I had the appreciation for it as I do now I could invest just a little more into it to maintain connection through another channel or something ... and it isn't the only time that's happened. Unfortunately we just don't have that sense of perspective until later in life sometimes.

 

Yea just kind of like a personality sort of thing where I upload vlogs and stuff every now and then. Also sometimes tech related videos.

You should totally try out Udemy, they actually have sales really frequently. Like all their courses would be like $10 or $11 when they usually cost a lot more. There are so many great subjects to check out. https://www.udemy.com/

I study graphic design, something I'm passionate about, even though its not always the most exciting thing.

But yea, above everything else, I've just been trying to maintain productivity and my general self care.
Reading, writing songs, working out, NoFap, etc. It's been good but I do get really lonely at times, which is weird because I wasn't the most social person even before quarantine lmao. But I'm pushing through it anyways. I find that the time alone has been really rewarding when I'm able to stick to my self care. One of my longest NoFap streak was last April and it was for 80 days. When I was in that streak I felt so productive and just so happy to be alone, by myself doing things I was actually passionate about! I'm trying to beat that.