The Productive Pessimist

  Image shows a pile of UK cash notes beneath an X on a red circle background I watch a lot of finance videos on YouTube. Currently, I'm mostly focused on Ramit Seti ("I Will Teach You To Be Rich"), having ditched Caleb Hammer ("The Financial Audit") for a very strong swerve to "right-wing screaming", an attitude of "I'm not gonna bother qualifying to actually be a financial advisor, so nothing I say is actually advice", and ramping up from "roasting is a banter-y part of the process" to "this channel is now just me getting to rage on people", none of which are my cup of tea, and Chelsea Fagan of The Financial Diet for "OMG, men are just literally the worst, they ruin women's financial lives, let me just present all the women who've BROKEN FREE from TERRIBLE men! Oh, yeah, the ONLY reason I'm not f-ked by all the debt I ran up in college is I married a rich dude who took care of that for me, but I'...

  Every article that comes up when you search "How to recover from burnout" is either just the usual bare-minimum basic "human life maintenance" of "oooohhh, get enough sleep! Eat fruit and veggies! Exercise! Be outside! THERAPEEEEE!!!!" - okay, tell the "get enough sleep" to my insomnia.  I go to bed around 10pm routinely. I don't scroll my phone or bop about on my laptop when I'm settling to sleep. I know I need to have background noise, so I set that up before I settle down. I take half an hour before I start to try to sleep, I check in with whether I need more/fewer blankets, or if I need the window open.  I sleep alone (I'm married, my wife and I have very contradicting sleep needs.) I'm a grown adult without food sensitivities or allergy triggers - I eat fresh fruit and vegetables as a routine, daily thing.  Along with knowing my body's tolerance for protein (I have high protein needs owing to multiple physical health ch...

  Recently, I read a poetry 'zine, " The  Wisdom of the Punk Buddha " by Sam Marsh. It was, in general, a good collection of reflections, which I agreed with overall. But, like so many "radical positions"...Sam had a fixation on the "obligation" to "be a healthy punk". Every where you look, those who proudly prance around shouting about ho w counter-culture they are align themselves very strongly with the dominant culture when it comes to "You must be healthy! Being healthy is completely within your control! If you aren't healthy, you don't have the necessary self-control to succeed in our fight!" And that is ableism. Yes, yes - "Oh my god , is everything an 'ism, these days?!" No, everything isn't. But insisting on health in order for people to be seen as "committed enough", "capable enough", insisting on "being healthy" as a pre-re quisite to being seen as a va...