Eighth Salon: Quality of Life

[jenett]

Welcome to our eighth salon discussion thread. Wander in, invite a friend to come along, and chat! (Not sure what's going on? Here, have a brief FAQ.) You can find previous ones in my salon tag. Please take a quick look at the reminders at the bottom of this post, too.

Quality of life: what does it mean for you?

I was thinking, walking home from work the other day, that there's a lot of different kinds of things that make up quality of life, the "This is a good day" and "I like how I'm living".

In my current job, I don't make much money (especially given the amount of education required). But I live half a mile from work, in a gorgeous rural New England town where pretty much every view could be on a postcard. (And that's before you get to anything significantly scenic.) There's a downtown grocery store with local produce, and farmer's markets, and all sorts of other things.

I have a job that I mostly leave at work (I mean, I keep thinking about technology and libraries and information pretty much all the time, but that's because I love it, not because I have to bring work home). I have the world's most endearing and adorable cat.

But I also know that these things aren't necessarily what other people would choose (or what I'd choose at other points in my life, or if I lived in a different place, or had more money to play with.)

Things I'm watching: I'm currently rewatching season 3 of Doctor Who (I've been a fan since before I knew you could be: I grew up watching Tom Baker from under a chair in the living room.) Tonight, I'm going to go see the Joss Whedon Much Ado About Nothing for the second time so I can go with a friend (and because, on the whole, I would like to encourage people to do more projects of that kind.) What're you watching? Why is it interesting to or fun for you?

(This means I'll be out from 5ish until 9:30ish tonight. I assume you can all manage in my absence.)

Quick reminders

- jjhunter did a great guide to following conversations here on Dreamwidth. Also a roundup of regular Dreamwidth events.
- If you want to post anonymously, please pick a name (any name you like) that we can call you - it makes it more conversational and helps if we have more than one anon post.
- Base rule remains "Leave the conversation better than you found it, or at least not worse". If you're nervous about that, I'd rather you say something and we maybe sort out confusion later than have you not say something. (I've heard from a few people who worry they're going to say something that's going to be taken weirdly. If it helps, I am usually around and if there's a thing you'd like to get out in the conversation, but you're not sure how, feel free to PM or email or IM me, and I'll nudge the conversation that direction.)
- The FAQ still has useful stuff, and I added some thoughts about getting conversations going a few weeks ago.
- Comments tend to trickle in over the course of a day or two, with a few nearly a week later: you might enjoy checking back later if you're not tracking the conversation.

Comments

[kaberett]

I'd love to know what you think of the Whedon Much Ado - it's my absolute favourite Shakespeare; I spent Monday night watching a brilliant open-air production of it, and might go again before it closes on Saturday. MY FAVOURITE, seriously. Beatriiiiice.

Otherwise, I'm not really watching anything - I'm just incredibly excited about both Elementary s2 and Korra s2, both due to start airing in September, and the Korra trailer that got released last week.

I'm reading (slowly) Derek Walcott's Omeros; and Frances Hodgson Burnett's The Lost Prince, at the repeated urging of surexit :-)


-- quality of life -- having access to sunshine. And to food that I will reliably eat. And to things that are calming, in sensory terms - my heavy blanket. But mostly? Feeling useful. So -- volunteering is something I get a lot out of, but it's best if I get thanked, and in turn this is prompting me to make sure I thank co-volunteers for work they do, because that is how community happens. And it makes me feel better, even when I don't get thanked in turn, because it reminds me that I'm not the only person putting work in, and that other people do appreciate my work even if they don't say it. So there's a thing.

[jenett]

Much Ado is also way up for my fav Shakespeare, but it's also one of the ones where I am more open to different interpretations than some (I have exceedingly strong opinions about aspects of Midsummer's and Lear, for example.)

I have a longer write up in a locked post, but let me do a summary here too!

First, I really liked it! A lot! Which is the other part of why I'm going to go see it again.

Joss Whedon is *excellent* at ensemble cast, and this is such an ensemble cast play. Hero and Claudio have as much personality and agency as you can wrangle out of the text, and I really loved a lot of the staging. (I also really ended up liking the timelessness of the black and white filming: a lot of it read as sort of 50s era, except you have moments of modern technology.)

In describing this to people, I finally ended up with an explanation that works for me, which is that it's got a very Hufflepuff aesthetic to it: it has a lot of food and drink, and a lot of scenes in the kitchen, and a lot of playing on family and loyalty and trust and honest. (Where, in contrast, the Branagh version reads to me as very Ravenclaw: all wit and cutting intelligence.) Whether that comparison makes sense outside my head, I'm not so sure, but there you are.

People keep telling me to watch Elementary, and I've not had enough spare brain to pick it up, but I'm looking forward to it. (Picking up the quality of life bit in a separate comment.)

[jenett]

I like that bit, about thanks.

I am not so reliant on thanks, I think, as I am on seeing things change.

I am, at the moment, doing vast amounts of data entry for the Alternity wiki, and while I'm sort of "Argh, there is so much data" about it (and I've got at least a hundred hours more work to do, I think), but I really love making progress, and seeing things come together, and seeing it get *used*. I have a much harder time when I'm working on something where that's less obvious. (And then, yeah, thanks help a lot.)

Rambling: Quality of Life, Health, Meaning, Purpose

[untonuggan]

[I started reading kaberett and then my comment a-sploded. Including it in this thread because that's where the thought originated].

Okay, so yes, there's the whole hierarchy of needs thing.

I think (?) some people - myself included at one point - might include "good health" among quality of life. Am thinking of a line from Disney's Robin Hood in which Sir Hiss states that, "If you haven't got your health, you haven't got anything." Which I now do without. And yeah, it frelling sucks at times. The doctor's appointments, the pain, the paperwork, the pain, the lack of income, the pain, etc. Does that mean I have no quality of life? No.

What takes away quality of life the most, in my opinion (and bear in mind that I am stating this for me not Every-Person-With-Disabilities-Ever) is the attitude that I have no quality of life and that I have nothing to contribute to society because I am unable to do "substantial gainful activity" (legal term).

Typical small talk:
Stranger: So, what do you do?
Me: I have a disability, so I fill my days with crafting and friendship and video games.
*awkward silence*

Anyway, the thing is that I do fill my days with meaning. For me that may be crafting and friendship and video games. For someone else, that might be something completely different. But the trick is to find meaning, something, whether it's collecting pins or eating Wensleydale cheese or saving Gotham. If you have that thing to cling to, even when you have a day when all your other needs are not being met, you can cling to that.

/ramble

housing-related

[jjhunter]

This has been on my mind lately with the recent move. :o)

Things I look for in a place to live that have a big impact on daily quality of life:

- light & sense of interior space / air: I gravitate toward places with windows, higher ceilings, light-colored walls, wood or tiled floors (such materials reflect rather than absorb light), and (especially where I'd sleep) literal height from the ground - I love being more than one floor above the ground outside.

- location: easy access to public transit, esp. rapid public transit (subway, etc.) & bikeability / walkability (walkscore.com is a great tool for figuring this out); proximity to trees / green spaces and/or water when possible; also strong sense of local community / history if possible - what often gets referred to as neighbor 'character'

- roommates: people I enjoy building things with; they don't necessarily need to be close friends, or even people I would normally seek out as friends; rather, people who are financially responsible, able to operate interdependently AND independently (both are important), and sufficiently self-aware to communicate easily around maintaining their own (& respecting others') personal boundaries.

What sorts of housing arrangements do you value in terms of quality of life? What types of spaces, locations, and inhabitants (or lack thereof) add rather than detract from your day-to-day sense of wellbeing?

Re: housing-related

[kaberett]

Yes! Big windows, high ceilings, not sleeping on the ground floor; I like rooms, and buildings, that aren't "boxy", that have a sense of accretion and labyrinthine history. I love rooms that have inset sections of wall, or corners to hide in; I love rooms with deep windowsills, just short of inconveniently high off the ground, so I can pile up cushions and draw the curtains and hide in the sunlight with a book.

I agree entirely about location; in terms of inhabitants, I tend to be much more comfortable living with people it's okay for me to ask for care from - people who won't be upset/dismayed to find me immobile and horizontal on the kitchen floor, for example, but will be okay with getting me a glass of water and meds I request and then leaving me to get on with it (or maybe staying in the room to do their own things, but not making a big deal out of aforementioned horizontal & immobile). Being able to cook with or for people is a really big deal for me; feeding people is super-important. Strongly agreed on the boundaries front.

-- oh, yes, and sloping ceilings! And topography, preferably with igneous bedrock. I grew up in a swamp (seriously: Cambridge, UK), but home is the Austrian Alps (in an ancestral sense), and having serious topography on the horizon just-- it just. Suddenly things are more right.

Re: housing-related

[jenett]

I am currently living in an apartment - ok, here I digress into a particular kind of New England rural architecture. It's really common around here that you had an older house, usually fairly square or rectangular, and a barn.

And then people built on extensions, usually between the house and the barn, because that way you didn't have to go outside to feed your animals when it was cold out. Or raining. Or both. And you had more storage for pantry goods. And a mud room for coming in when it was miserable out. (This is New England: there are many varieties of possible weather.)

So my apartment is the second floor of one of those extensions (with a little entry space and closet under the stairs and bit of storage on the ground floor). It's up under the eaves, which means there's all sorts of interesting angles, and for light, they put in a skylight in the kitchen. I have a bathroom and a kitchen and a nook off the kitchen and a living room, and a bedroom, and an absurd amount of closet space. And snow removal fairies.

I did not know I wanted a skylight in my kitchen until I had one. (I've been living there just about a year this week, and it's much better than the apartment I moved into when I moved cross country.) But I adore going through the kitchen (to the bathroom, or to the fridge to make ice water, or whatever) and seeing the stars through the skylight.

Other things I care about:

- I have not lived with other people in about 6 years now, and unless I take up a serious relationship in the future, expect to keep doing that. It does limit where I live (I could not, for example, live in much of the Boston area easily without roommates on what librarians generally get paid.)

I like my time alone too much. I like having it be dark when I want it dark (and generally, I almost never have lights on except the shining pixels of my computer screen once it gets dark.) And I like having it be quiet. I usually have headphones on, but still, there's something about having it be just me that I really like.

- The cat. Cat vastly improves my quality of life. Especially a cat who basically rolls on her back and exudes loving adoration whenever I look at her, and purrs her heart out.

- I really like being as close as I am to work. (There's practical reasons here: higher speed internet is a lot more shaky as you get out of town), but I love that I can walk to work (half a mile), walk downtown for minor groceries, walk for a sandwich or several other kinds of food. We're not actually all that walkable by Walkscore's criteria (only about a 55), but for actual daily living, it's very nice.

Also, my commute home from work is all of 4 minutes if I drive. 5 if I hit the traffic light wrong. Compared to times when I had a 45 minute commute, or there were errands I just couldn't do without going way out of my way, it's lovely.

(There are things I'd have to drive to: but even then, the hospital and medical office complex is only about 5 minutes.)

[mrissa]

I need trees. I need wide varieties of fresh produce, good dairy, and heaps and gobs of trees.

What I'm watching: I'm nearing the end of Damages S4, which will be enough Damages for awhile. It's soapy and appalling, and I enjoy it, but as a sometimes-food. (It certainly gets me through workouts, though.) I'm also nearing the end of S6 of Wire in the Blood, which is the end of the whole series. I've just started The Eagle, which is a Danish cop show, and I'm loving that for linguistics geekery mostly, but also for international perspective.

[alexseanchai]

I like my job. I like my coworkers. I do not take my work home. Overtime is often available if I want it. We get paid like we're data entry clerks, not paralegals, even though our work is better filed under 'paralegal' than 'data entry', and we ain't had a COLA raise in a while let alone an actual raise, but that is par for the state employee course, and we have excellent benefits. It is a good job. I suspect I can't do NaNoWriMo in November anymore, though, not if I want that juicy overtime money, because guess when the annual scary-busy time starts ramping up. Yuletide is probably still within reach, depends on when the writing period commences and if I can get the story done early enough in that period.

I have time to read. I have time to write. I have time to Internet. These are good things, vital to my quality of life.

Also vital to my quality of life: living alone, being relaxed about money. Sadly I am unable to do either at present.

I'm currently watching jack shit for pleasure, because my brain has it in its head that I have to finish the season of Supernatural (last eight or so minutes of 8x22 plus all of 8x23, and I have heard spoilers about 8x22 that Do Not Want) before I start on anything else, and when I tried to beat that out with a mallet I discovered that I can't actually watch my copies of OUAT or Lost Girl because I only have them on Blu-ray and my Blu-ray drive is being a lumberjack. Bloody expensive paperweight, and I don't have money to replace it. I'd love to see the Whedon Much Ado but per Fandango it's not in my area. (I'm not sure what Fandango considers 'my area', though.) I'm also watching a lot of Disney, but that doesn't count because it's for women's studies class.

[sharpeningthebones]

This is an answer for two different people, Natty does not have her own journal, and is right here, so we're shoving them in one comment.

Mallory:
I think quality of life is how you are with yourself. I think it's about being right in your head and being happy with who you are first I think that, if you're not good on that front, than you can't expect to have things be well externally. At least that' the case with me.

I also think that quality of life is relative and each person has to define their own lines about what it is.


Natty:
It's...It's about who you know, how they treat you and that includes yourself. People make life with living, they are....are everything to me and if I don't have people I care about in my life, I don't feel like it's a good quality. My best friend is everything to e and he's...I don't know. Now that things are better between us, everything is a little bit better. It makes the world shine and everything feel like it's going to be all right.

I think that's a good sign, right? That everything feels like it's going to be allright. That's how you know you have a good quality of life, when you can lean on someone and have hope.

[jenett]

Welcome, hi!

I do think that quality of life is a deeply internal thing sometimes. (And as Venecia refers to, a bit down, it's something that can change over time, especially around things like the kind of work that's most satisfying or sustainable.)

I think for me, that a lot of my quality of life is about how much space I have: inside my head, outside my head, to do the things that matter to me. Some of that's about other people (jobs, for example, involve them, generally, somehow), but a lot of that is about what I do about the choices I have. Or priorities.

[theora]

Beyond the basics of food/clothing/shelter and adequate income to provide same...this is difficult. I keep thinking of things then wondering if they're really quality of life issues or if I'm trying to create my ideal world (and what does it say about me that for decent quality of life I apparently want everything my way?).

Anyway, to try and boil it down a bit: I need a place to garden. I need enough personal time to 1) destress and 2) do some of my own thing (be it paid work, volunteering, or hobbies). I need to trust the people around me, not just friends and family but neighbors and community. This last is the kicker, since it's something that's well nigh impossible to have any control over. Cohousing and living in the middle of nowhere are the only ways I can think of to achieve it, neither of which is likely to work for us for practical reasons.

That my surrounding ecosystem is not too degraded is important to me, and that the people who inhabit that ecosystem strive to be part of it rather than apart from it. That my community treat children as genuine human beings rather than their parents' inconvenient baggage. That there are places to take long walks safely. I think most of these hang off community.

[jjhunter]

I strongly agree re: importance of surrounding ecosystem, and instinctually want to push back a bit at how you've defined community here as something that's "well nigh impossible to have any control over". Have split the latter into a separate thread downthread (Growing the communities we yearn for) and would be interested in hearing more of your thoughts if you're up for elaborating.

[crystalpyramid]

I like my job. It is fun, it is interesting, it is Meaningful Work. I do take work home and I take student issues home and physics is always on my mind, but some of that is good. I wish I were better friends withvmy coworkers, but I do have like-minded friends in my professional organization, and that helps.

Right now it is summer and my quality of life feels very high, although technically we are sort of homeless: crashing with a friend with our stuff in a heap until our live-in date. I'm spending over an hour xlcommuting each way, but it's on trains so that's okay. I have time for deliberate exercise and time to cook and eat food from scratch, which goes a long way towards balance for me. I haven't driven a car in weeks.

Being plugged into communities is important to me. Right now it's just church; I feel like I should take a class or join a choir or someting to connect better with people. Music and food and exercise and not being bored and getting sleep. Those things seem to matter more than living space right now.

[jenett]

Thank you for reminding me to check if the local adult education stuff for fall is up yet (no, but it is now in my todo list to check in August.) Because yes. Connecting with local people.

From Venecia

[(Anonymous)]

In the past dozen or so years, I've discovered that I'm really bad at predicting what will give me a better quality of life. I don't think I'm the only one either, if research on stuff like the hedonic treadmill and the tyranny of choice is any indication. That means that there's been a lot of experimentation on our family's part in these past years to figure that out. Here's what I've learned improves our quality of life:

* A short commute. This is a big one for us. Not just the commute to work, which is a big deal, but the distance to other things we do regularly. This seems to apply to all of us. The less time we have to spend driving the better.

* Good food. This means good in terms of local / sustainable as well as good restaurants to try. This is affected by regional concerns as well as locale size.

* Local economy. I like living in a place where there are lots of local options in the economy. That means independent restaurants and grocery stores, local artists and artisans, and local banking options.

* Social compatibility. Now that we've lived in the Desert Southwest, Rocky Mountains, Midwest, and Northwest, I can tell you that there are regional differences in culture that affect our quality of life. These are subtle, but at this point the ability to find other parents who are cool (and won't keep trying to invite us to church) is a big part of it. I don't want to stereotype as no matter where you are there are different types of people, but I've noticed broad trends in things like religiousness, type of sense of humor, conformity to norms, and so on. Having friends comes under this heading and is important for all of us in the household.

* Light. This is interesting in that my husband and I differ on this one significantly. He'd be perfectly happy in a cozy basement or Hobbit Hole, while I need copious windows. I particularly want windows that bring in the outdoors, while he craves privacy. Our current house is a compromise that doesn't seem to meet either of our needs in this regard. Better would be a house with a finished basement for his studio and a ground level floor with windows all around for me. One thing we agree on is that we prefer to be set back from the street with yard all around.

* A calm job. For years I had rollicking startup jobs with lots of energy and stress. I'm not sure if I was really happy there or just addicted to the adrenalin. And I'm not sure if my current preference for calm steady work is because I finally figured out my real preference or whether I've changed as I've aged. In either case, I like a long-term stable job that are interesting, but not hyper-stressful or chaotic.

* Financial stability. This doesn't mean wealth necessarily (I wouldn't really know whether being fabulously wealthy would improve my quality of life, though I'm willing to subject myself to the experiment) but that ability to not have to worry about money all the time. I wish we were there right now.

* Health. We have had some issues with this recently and it's made me really appreciate how important it is to be well and uninjured. This has caused us to focus on our own health more lately in terms of diet and the like.

Quality of Life

[kakiphony]

Community related things that help me feel at home:
-Ability to bike around town. (This means the community is not too sprawling AND that proper attention has been paid to bike lanes, speed limits, road widths, etc)
-A pre-dominantly socially liberal community (or at least access to sub-groups of the community fitting that bill)
-Not too large a city. (I tend to like my cities 150,000 people or less. Currently, I'm in a roughly 20,000 people city with about an additional 30,000 in nearby lakes/rural areas and about 10,000 tourists on any given weekend and it's fine. My last city was about 100,000 plus another 150,000 college students and was also fine.)
-Good parks and lots of green space
-Sensible parking solutions and laws. (I'm currently very annoyed that my neighborhood allows no on-street overnight parking when the houses are such an age that there are no driveways and the MOST alley parking anyone has is two cars. This makes having family come stay interesting.)

Geography things that make me feel at home:
-Access to water (oceans, big lakes preferred, but rivers and small lakes will work in a pinch)
-Four distinct seasons, bonus points to long falls and springs
-Rolling hills
-Quick access to farmland (bonus points for orchards and vineyards)

House type things that make me happy:
-Pale walls (blues, yellows, greens, grays) with a minimum of beige
-Hard wood, tile or laminate floors (no wall-to-wall)
-A gas stove
-On-site laundry
-Room for some flowers/veggies/herbs (if only in pots), but not too huge a yard for upkeep
-Decent windows (that open and shut and are not too drafty)
-Either air conditioning OR decent air flow for fans
-A minimum of a bath and half. (I'm married. Two toilets really helps, especially the few times we've both been ill.)
-Decent storage (Bonus points for big closets and a pantry)
-Trees in the yard/neighborhood, but also some sunny spots (for growing things)
-Enough wall space for bookshelves (bonus points for built-ins)
-At least one guest bedroom (bonus points for two, one of which is big enough to double as space for a desk and/or sewing machine)

Growing the communities we yearn for

[jjhunter]

I've seen lots of people mention community in the threads so far, and I find it interesting that most of us (I definitely include myself in this!) have articulated it as something particular to geography, something that is either there or not there. theora went so far as to say upthread

This last is the kicker, since [community]'s something that's well nigh impossible to have any control over. Cohousing and living in the middle of nowhere are the only ways I can think of to achieve it [...] [emphasis added]

I want to push back a bit at that notion that community outside of one's household, particularly community offline, is something independent & disconnected from the individuals who compose it; am splitting this into a separate thread from theora's to shift into a more general discussion.

As I understand it, community cannot happen without individuals - how can we have a group without people to populate that group? - and groups with a strong sense of community within the group get that sense of community from synergy: the group together feels like more than the sum of its parts. It has an 'identity' of some kind that provides ready common ground for people within the group to more easily connect with each other, and feel confident that investing emotionally, socially, and/or financially in the group / other people in the group will be reciprocated in some way.

tl;dr How do you define community? Where do you look to find a sense of it offline? How might we strengthen communities that already exist, or plant the seeds of new ones to grow what we yearn for?

Re: Growing the communities we yearn for

[jenett]

I'd actually sort of been saving that for a later salon, but you're right, it's timely. I think it's partly about having people and energy at the same time. (I have more energy than I used to, but it's a small town: the number of people I really want to build community with is limited in various ways.)

But I think some of it is also openness to the possibility, wherein I get to tell a story. Back in February, the co-worker I like best and I went to a movie (in the next town about 45 minutes away that has the art film house, and also a very good Mexican restaurant in the same building - it's where we're seeing Much Ado tonight.) And we'd both had pretty lousy weeks for various reasons.

It's a Friday night, and they're busy, so we have about a 30 minute wait for a table. And about 15 minutes in, we start talking to a woman in her 40s who's there to study and work on something. And when her table comes up, she invites us to join her.

Which is, as it turns out, totally unlike all three of us. But we have an awesome time, and a certain amount of drinking of margaritas, and when my friend and I have to go to the movie, we make plans to do it again a month later. When the other woman brings a friend.

And then we met in June, when they brought another friend. And we just did it again last Friday, and have one planned for Labor Day weekend (longer outing! In Portland! It'll be awesome!) We all totally look forward to them, and it's so totally unlike *all* of us, and yet it's so totally an awesome thing. (We aim at roughly monthly, but my co-worker works a 10 month contract and travels a lot in the summer.)

(I'm the youngest, at 37: my co-worker is the oldest at 62. One of us is just getting into a new house post-divorce, the woman we originally met in February had a really bad couple of years and now is in school to go do awesome stuff. Two of us travel a lot, the other three not so much, and so on. But we're all curious about the world, and interested in talking, and it just *works*.)

I have no idea how you make that kind of thing happen, I really don't. [1] Except not to shut the door on the possibility when it hits you over the head.

But I'm glad that we said yes, and that we keep saying yes, because really, it's totally awesome. And it's very relaxing to be with people where there aren't a lot of expectations except that we show up, talk, and have a good time.

It's not quite all the community I want: I am very aware that I'm short on 'people who could help if I had a medical crisis who are nearby and handy'. But it's a not-bad start, for people I can see in person regularly.

[1] Well. Actually. I sort of do: it is a very functional solution to a bit of magical work I did more than two years ago. But I'm not sure that's actually useful to anyone else.)

Re: Growing the communities we yearn for

[kakiphony]

I think what you say is true, community is MADE not pre-existing. However, I think there needs to be a critical mass of like minded people around in order for a community to be formed. I've lived in some very rural, very conservative areas where establishing a community that worked for me was much, much harder. Now, when I think about where I want to live, I think about regions or cities where the general feel of the place is more in line with my own nature, interests and politics -- it's just easier.

Interestingly though, I've found that having really concrete ideas about what I want my community to be like before forming it doesn't work. For example, I'm a fairly logical thinker and tend to distrust much of what I call magical thinking. So it wouldn't generally occur to me to look for community amongst those who subscribe to it. But over the years I have found that I actually do fit in well with people who tend to be into those things which I think are hokum. I just end up the Doubting Thomas of the group! (I want to believe, which may help. But my brain just likes evidence and studies and seems disinclined to have mystical experiences.)

And then there communities/friendship groups which, on paper, seem perfect for me. Their members like the same things I do, they have similar world views, are at similar places in their lives, etc. But somehow, we just don't like each other. (Oddly, I tend to find that many of the people who are most similar to me in interests etc also tend to be really cliquish and judgmental. I'm not sure what that says about me....)

Re: Growing the communities we yearn for

[theora]

Hmm. When I said community, I was thinking less of local networks of friendships and connections and more the undifferentiated mass of people who live near enough to me to make an everyday difference in my life. I'd probably use the word community to mean both types of thing, which is maybe confusing. Or maybe they're not two different things, but degrees of the same thing? Hmm again.

I agree that it's possible to have some control over whether you have a community of friends and friendly acquaintances local to you. There can be barriers, definitely, as others have articulated, but it's not where I feel powerless. Where I feel powerless is all the people who affect my daily life simply by virtue of living near me. People who I have a connection with not by desire or compatibility but by circumstance. We're connected by the place and its vagaries (road construction, water main breaks, town politics, weather events, etc.), but beyond that are there any shared values? How would we even find out? What can we do about values which are incompatible, given that terminating the relationship (as you would with a person you had a choice about dealing with) is not possible?

I'm having a hard time getting at what I'm trying to get at, so will stop now and go to bed instead.

[silveradept]

Unfortunately, I'm finding that many of the things I think about as quality of life issues are things that I currently have a deficiency of.

First and foremost, I need confidence that all the bills and expenditures are going to be paid, with enough left over to save for emergencies and big projects. That is relative to the amount of money coming in - if I'm the only person in the household working, the anxiety is a lot greater unless the others in the household are really trying hard to stick to the budget. If they're also bringing in income, the panic can subside, assuming all the bills and things are still being met. I don't like being in debt, even the necessary kind that gives a break on taxes.

Beyond that, I also need some amount of space that is unequivocally mine. Significant Other discouraged this, strongly preferring that I think of everything as Ours, which is a result of zie's fear that I will engage in a giant Face Heel Turn and leave zie on the street with nothing. I still think of our shared residence as zie's that I am paying for when feeling particularly out of harmony.

Additionally, I need time away from my workday to claim as my own. This is difficult when animals have to be fed, chores done, and Significant Other laying claim to time because zie wants to feel connected through the fine art of watching television together. When out of harmony, this translates to "working five days to get paid and working two days without pay".

The account of time I want to myself is proportional to the amount of things that I want to do - busting heads in video games is a smaller time problem than, say, wanting to change operating systems. Not getting time is bearable, but being interrupted from the task is teeth-grinding.

Work quality involves getting the chance to flex the creative muscle once in a while, whether in getting a meaty reference question or in working on a project that will have impact. Having impact on people, and being able to get the feedback that the impact is good, is important.

Not that I'm demanding, or anything. I just want to feel like I'm helping and that nobody is thinking negatively of me.

[jjhunter]

Respectfully, without knowing more of the circumstances than you're sharing here, that sounds like a relationship style that currently caters more to Significant Other's anxieties than your needs. If you are interested in resources / scripts to help Significant Other deal with zir anxieties more effectively and you to feel more comfortable asserting & having your needs met, there are some Captain Awkward articles (and for that matter, Dear Sugar ones) that I would recommend without hesitation. What you are describing here sounds exhausting on a day to day basis, and unnecessarily so.

[sanacrow]

Once again, I'm just getting here. Today was the last day of class for the summer semester, and I uploaded my last project paper right before the midnight deadline. Friday is my last day in the counseling office for the summer, and then I have two weeks off for recuperation and personal projects.

I'm not where I want as far as quality of life, but part of this whole school thing is to help get us to a place where we *do* have what we need and some of what we want. And I'm finding as I'm changing from one kind of life to another that some of what I consider most important is shifting a bit as well.

I do have a lot of what makes my life good, though. I have a wonderful Honey that I adore and who fits me really well - and who understands my eccentricities and thinks they're cute, or at least not overly annoying. I absolutely must have time and space to hermit. I am an extreme introvert, but part of the work that drives my passion involves working with other people. The only way I can do this without going crazy (or crazier, actually) is to regularly take time away from the world where I can just be in my own head, with my own projects, and not deal with anyone else. Even Robin sometimes.

I need light, and food that feeds my heart as well as my body. I need books and stories. I need my projects. I need access to friendly trees to hug, and regular visits to "living water" - a healthy creek or stream that I can put my feet and hands in. I need to be able to drive. Driving with Robin with our tunes is my best way to de-stress (double so if it's through the mountains), and it's our favorite talking time. I also need to do my religious Woo regularly. Working with the particular critters that I do isn't a choice for me - if I don't deal with them in a way that works for all of us, they will drive me to the not functional in consensual reality level of crazy. (Not intentionally, I don't think, but as a side effect of Other Stuff.)

We'll be moving next May, and that will bring a lot more of our "quality" bits that we've been low on back. A brighter apartment. A less stressful school schedule. A bigger college community. More mountains to explore. Less Vol Orange. Now if I could just manage to wiggle a trip to Disney in there....

Overall, while there are things I certainly complain about, my life is pretty good. I am loved. I am working towards doing work that I've been passionate about for decades - and I'm doing pretty well in school, too. I have an internship that appreciates me and that I feel I am making a difference for others in. Money gives me ulcers right now, but that's a short-term thing until one of us is done being poor students. And it's all good.

[kaberett]

Good luck with your time off and your personal projects. I'm currently in summer-off (ish) after finishing undergrad, and I am really enjoying the amount of progress I am making on things I'd let pile up to Deal With Later!

Yes, yes, yes to trees and to living water - I have gone on (slightly incoherently) above about why landscape is so important to me.

I am glad that things are going broadly well for you.

From a song that I am listening to -- on community

[kaberett]

This has just come up in shuffle:

True hope resides in that moment where a person holds their hand out to a stranger on the ground / I will not allow myself to be destroyed by these betrayals / I won’t ever let these bastards grind me down.

(Onsind -- Kim Kelley Is My Cognitive Behaviourial Therapist; they write beautifully about all this kind of thing.)

And it's defiant and desperate and it is solidarity, and it reminds me that I have community, and how I can build, and how I can help, even as my government is tearing things down around me.