I Reblog Stuff.

them from my ear-infection

induced all-nighter

People SAY that your health 'suddenly' starts to decline in your 30s but that's not really a good way to put it A) bc that's not really accurate and B) bc it frames this decline as something inherent and unavoidable, which does nothing to convince you that you have some agency about this.

So I'm going to explain this in LOOSE NON-SCIENTIFIC language:

When you are an infant or child, you are actively growing. Nature is throwing tons of new cells into you bc your body needs to BUILD BUILD BUILD. What you're able to do, eat and heal from is all largely dictated by this-- for example little kids often LOVE sweet foods or dairy-like foods and are relatively less interested in anything else. This is bc their body is running on HIGH all the time since building body parts is very energetically intensive. They can eat a fistful of sugarcubes and burn them off in an hour. Ask me how I know.

When you are a YOUNG ADULT you are actually still developing to a secondary extent, but your bones and such are fused and now that development goes into solidifying the structure and also finetuning its reproductive capabilities and features-- these, too, are HIGHLY energy consumptive when they first come online. Nature is STILL, thus, throwing tons of energy and new cells your way hoping you'll do something cool with them. You regenerate very quickly, and recover from harm rapidly-- But please note: swift recovery from harm is not absence of harm. This most relates to the consumption of 'junk food' and alcohol-- many people say they could 'eat whatever they wanted and nothing would happen' when they're in their 20s or that they could go out drinking and 'not be affected'. You were affected. You didn't notice.

Once everything has come online you go into maintenance mode. Nature stops throwing excess cells and energy your way bc you don't need that-- your body is yours and you are now responsible for maintaining it...hopefully with what you learned by experience in your 20s. IF YOU WERE NOT PAYING ATTENTION, you did not learn this, and are in for a surprise in your 30s bc your 'free recovery' subscription has ended. Recovery and maintenance- processes that are constant in the human body- now cost MINERALS & ELECTRICITY. You can go into DEBT now, and that debt will come in the form of joints that pop, inability to recover well, lowered immune function, and feeling like shit.

This debt accrues interest RAPIDLY once you hit 36-- the age of around 36 to 46 or so is a kind of reckoning stage where Nature assesses how well you've managed your body and you will be SWIFTLY downgraded if the result is you were just winging it.

So how do you build this account? 2 main things ( LOOSELY SPEAKING this is so not 100% scientific but I have to be general here): MINERALS -- you get these from eating well, mostly. You might want to take supplements based on your unique needs. But you need Minerals & Vitamins (i'm lumping these two together) bc they are the chemical building blocks (currency) your body uses to rebuild and fix up cells. ELECTRICITY is- again loosely speaking- having the proper chemical voltage throughout your body. This 'voltage' drops when you don't move enough, or when you're dehydrated. The building and repairing process your body wants to do may have the materials (minerals and vitamins) but there's not enough power in the factory, or the AC isn't working and the workers are overheating and can't work well. To fix this, drink lots of water and MOVE AND STRETCH your body. The action within your muscles and bones GENERATES ENERGY and it keeps your cells happy.

So the thing is, it's not that you suddenly find yourself taking damage after 30+. You were taking damage the whole time. You're just kept from really feeling it bc you're young and full of extra juice and given time to figure things out.

But at some point Nature expects you to do that, and you will pay if you don't.

Best to start out giving a shit, even if none of your friends think you're cool, even if you get called a 'health nut' bc you will still be able to frolick at 45, 50, probably so on while everyone who said it was dumb to have 'balanced meals' shares memes about how they wake up feeling like shit every day.

when you are reliant on your parents for care, the amount you can do to stop them from treating you like shit, yelling at you for asking them for help etc. is very minimal.

even if you have never had a good relationship with them, if they are extremely abusive, in this world where disabled people are left to fend for themselves in fucked situations, we often don't get to leave the relationships that harm us and many of the community die because of that.

Imperialist core entry level jobs have been replaced with outsourcing for the working class and internships for the wealthy.

The lack of entry level jobs means that recent graduates are not hired because they are expected to know in advance how to behave in the workplace rather than being trained when they begin working.

Actually as many as 1-in-3 job listings are fake, because this allows companies to claim they are "actively recruiting and growing" even when they aren't, which looks good to investors and can lead to government benefits as well.

In the US, hiring several part time jobs allows companies to save about 30% on benefits compared to hiring one full time job. This is directly because of the US's predatory healthcare system and lack of the worker protections common in other imperialist core economies.

The US minimum wage has been static for my entire adult life, in part because efforts to pin the minimum wage to cost of living metrics are constantly stonewalled by wealthy political groups.

The US labor participation rate is around 80% of abled adults, which yes, does mean about 20% of abled adults are not working, but perhaps much more damningly, this is actually very high participation compared to a lot of US history, and yet the cost of living and pay are so mismatched that quality of life is reaching impressive lows.

Masters degrees are being devalued as a consequence of the prior devaluation of Bachelors, that itself caused by the destruction and devaluation of compulsory public schooling in the US. This combines with the absence of entry level positions in deeply fraught ways.

I am unable to corroborate the claim that US job searches average greater than a year. However they do average well over 7 months, and the US's notoriously spiteful and underpaying unemployment system cuts off support much sooner than that. If you can even get unemployment support in the first place.