I'm still trying to figure this out for myself.
You just need to put yourself around people as much as possible.
If your circumstances are that it isn't possible, you shouldn't beat yourself up about it. You perhaps could then make it your goal to relocate or put yourself in a position where you can be around people.
What kind of stuff are you into?
This is a ticket to being seen as insufferable.
It is one thing if a kid's parents just does not have the means, but the article points out that some baby boomers (maybe more commonly in a the west?) can have tendencies to be spiteful toward people deemed less. Maybe this happens more so in WASP culture.
I'm personally of the belief that if I ever chose to have kids, that I would see it to the end that they felt supported, regardless of their age. The kids themselves didn't ask to be born.
A lot of cultures who have these values, I notice, have kids that thrive a lot more. I have some friends from east Asia, and they all were encouraged to be independent and pursue meaningful careers. Their parents support them intensely, and help with investments and other forms of support.
My biological father's family is Jewish (nonreligious). My first cousin is very successful and I know has been set up to have a meaningful career, because my aunt let her live at home during graduate school, and paid for her graduate degree in speech pathology. She will inherit the house she grew up in.
I grew up in WASP culture on my biological mother's side, and my mom has the attitude that she wants nothing to do with me, especially after I turned 18.
This is my parents. I found out from a relative that after my mom suffered an injury, that her husband was spending $2000 a month on fast food. Literally TWOOOOO THOUSAND dollars on fried chicken a month.
When the topic came up of them writing a will, they said that I'd be getting the family pictures. That's it.
Looove Dues Ex. I just looked up The Neverhood, and it looks so interesting. Definitely going to need to watch a long play of that.
I have a Motorola G7 Power that I installed LineageOS on. It was kind of hard to do, but I figured it out finally after some trial and error. If you ever wanted to do something similar and need help, let me know. I feel more comfortable having this versus a googled Android phone, and it is customizable enough that you could dumb it down.
GrapheneOS seems like an ideal choice, but I hate Google and didn't want to risk buying a used phone off of eBay that was carrier locked. Most people I've seen recommend buying an OEM unlocked Pixel new from a store, which I would hate doing. Let Google starve. I feel like Google and Amazon are huge instigators of the social problems around this.
I have a smart phone with a custom ROM, and a dumb phone (Sunbeam Mobile). No, I am not a drug dealer. Sometimes I change out my SIM card and will use the smart phone (especially if traveling to another state or country), and because it can make my life easier.
Here are some rambling thoughts I have on the topic:
-If you don't want to have a smart phone, and opt for a dumb phone, you need to be careful not to let your PC "replace" your bad smart phone habits in terms of scrolling, etc.
-For the peeps worried about privacy, I'm not sure if dumb phones would be an ideal choice. I'm not so sure how secure SMS and phone calls are. I am not an expert, so I have no idea about this, though. I usually use Matrix to have at length text conversations on a PC when I am not using a smart phone, because texting is annoying on a dumb phone and who knows if cell phone companies or other people are intercepting data to market more crap. I'm not so schizo about this, but it is annoying and creepy.
-People are isolated and need a way to build and maintain communities. These days, it is difficult to walk places and build community in the physical world. So that is why you have people getting together on Discord, Instagram, etc. I have definitely been isolated or lived in rural areas and having these outlets has been more helpful than harmful for me.
-If you want a dumb phone, I do recommend a Sunbeam Mobile phone. It supports group texting, navigation (with HERE Maps). I have an SD card full of music I put in the phone and it supports Bluetooth. I recommend the models of phones that are completely de-Googled.
-I don't think people should feel bad if they need a smart phone, especially if they are living in circumstances beyond their control which puts them in an isolating position.
-I think that ultimately people need to want to wake up to all of this. I want to be more involved in making my life more community oriented. I do live in a city, but it is very car dependent. I think that we need to push for development and policies that support community building over the long term, because most people are not happy having smart phones a fixture of everything. For example, is creepy to me that in any moment of time, I can guess what most people are doing (and that is that they are sitting on the Internet in some capacity or a smart phone).
-I hate Google and Amazon. Any way that I do not support them and boycott them is a win for me and society.
-I find it interesting that whenever I am using my Sunbeam phone, that younger people will come up to me and start asking about it. People are desperate to escape smart phones, but there are so many macro political and macro economical problems that create the situation we are in now. We see ourselves as so atomized that there is no examples of any organization or collective rejection of this crap.
Here is a great blog post, which I highly recommend reading: https://wrongthink.link/posts/re-life-in-dysfunctional-world/
Which flip phone do you use? I have a Sunbeam Mobile phone which is nice, but I have found it unsustainable in some ways.
Animatronics. I like old school Chuck E Cheese and Rockafire Explosion. Also, urban exploration. Train videos.
My Motorola G7 Power is a good phone. I have had it since 2021 and recently flashed LineageOS on it, and it works like a charm.
Most community colleges are very affordable, if not free with financial aid. At many state universities, many students who are low income can qualify for free tuition.
Damn, why?