Hope you’re asking theoretically.

In the UK, they make you pledge allegiance to serve the crown at the citizenship ceremony, which symbolically establishes that your loyalties lie with the British throne and therefore the state.

In practice, if drafted or if I for some reason volunteer, I would side with whoever I actually sided with morally and ideologically.

e.g. I’d choose the West over the current Fascist Russian regime, but theoretically back a progressive Russia against a Fascist West and so on.

This could mean anything from actively serving to dodging the draft to civilian resistance in case of occupation.

Theoretically a foreign legion isn’t anything too uncommon. There were some Russians fighting alongside Ukraine against Russia last I checked. Being in that case a Ukrainian citizen would only help.

In case of service I imagine there would be the problem of inevitable racism towards me from the natives while in service if people of my nationality/ethnicity are the current enemy, especially if it’s like the Japanese internment camps in the US level of hate, so that would be a consideration, plus more practical/logistical matters like which language I can actually speak properly enough to function in critical situations etc.

This is an interesting question though, is there historical accounts of such groups like this I wonder?

Good-at-stuff != Good-person

You owe it to others to try to be a good person, or at least, not a deliberately bad one. That is the social contract we all have to sign.

You only owe it to yourself to be good-at-stuff, at least you should if not for capitalism but that’s besides the point.

Not everyone can be good-at-stuff, but everyone can try to be a good-person.

If they succeed in the latter so much it causes them to fail at the former due to a sense of superiority and over-inflated egos then they have failed more spectacularly at an easier task than you.

At least that’s my take on it.

Now with the pep talk out of the way, practically speaking - you need to start making an exit out of that environment. Once they catch on they will no doubt pick on the odd one out, and the fact you’re already insecure will make you that much more an easy target. So I’d say go before this whole thing blows up, just my 2 cents.

Huh? How is it not healthcare? ADHD is a disorder that’s usually well-treated with medication.

I get the person is applying for a disability claim but surely they must already have tried and failed to achieve satisfactory symtpom adjustment to receive welfare?

Place makes food warm. Maybe it can make cat warm. Genius.

Yeah I don’t listen to podcasts, but art isn’t content and music is definitely the former.

I appreciate the sentiment but you also are making some weird assumptions:

“Such a massive problem”

I said it’s not a big deal.

came off as wanting to prove everyone else who doesn’t listen to music is crazy

Normally I’d think that yeah, given the negative reception I must’ve phrased myself badly, but honestly after reading it all, I think y’all invented this in your heads.

It’s because you think the opposite - that anyone like me is crazy, so when I act like I am normal - you take it as an insult.

And I am normal, as far as I can tell, once more - this is the only place offline or online that anyone had an issue with this, and I’m not gonna set expectations for normality based on a hyperniche hipster forum thread.

Aye

We all know what’s really going on ITT.

Did you mean to reply to yourself?

“Do your own research!”

Meanwhile you ignore an actual cited source. It’s like poetry, or something.

I never said boredom doesn’t have benefits either. I said that your claim of:

" It’s objectively a fact that people need to be bored/idle to be at their most creative."

Is not objective, it’s not fact, in fact - it’s insane hyperbole and an insane thing to claim in general, very obviously so.

If you find lustre in grocery trips, I’m sorry for you.

Oh yeah for sure, and I do do that as well, you never know what kind of melody will pop in, but most of the time, when I’m walking to the store it’s not exactly inspirational or got me feeling creative anyway.

For me - creativity requires initial stimulus. Some boredom is good, but too much and it’s depressing, and induces anhedonia. A right level of adventure is perfect. Walk to the store, not exactly an adventure. But the mind can travel. Will it be this today, or something more like this, maybe a bit of this or like that or maybe something older or totally out of the leftfield.

The possibilities are endless.

Shit, I’m sorry, that’s rough. I do wonder how much my height and build shields me from this sort of stuff, I’ve been catcalled before by delivery drivers at red lights and such but not much else, I’m very lucky.

Fair enough.

Would you like to elaborate on how exactly it’s an addiction and how exactly it’s unhealthy?

Do you want to describe why you think others don’t do it when many others clearly do and it’s obviously the case otherwise there wouldn’t be headphones and millions of hours of music made every day and listened to every day and why it has been a thing since the dawn of civilization itself, if not before, that people create art and consume art?

Why do you think I said “everyone does it”, even when I never said anything of the sort and posted comments directly contradictory to that ITT like the fact I said I personally don’t know anyone else who does not listen to anything outside, (never even making it specific to music!), and I’ve stated that I do actually see people without earphones on - but they are a small minority amongst the earphone-wearing majority.

Would you like to elaborate on how exactly I miss the entire world around me when time and time again I’ve responded to this accusation within this thread by clearly stating that in fact - I do not “miss” much of anything, with one poster even literally creating a little test question I was easily able to answer.

Would you like to elaborate on why you assume I am young? Especially since I’ve literally stated elsewhere in the thread my age, but I’m almost 30, I’ve not had a smartphone until 2012, and had dial-up until after the GFC. I actually remember my childhood quite well and it was a happy one, I remember playing with actual physical toys for most of it and going outside and getting into all sorts of hijinks with the kids around the neighborhood.

Why do you assume I hadn’t spoken to a mental health professional before?

I actually did therapy back when I had a brief bout of the sads due to experiencing institutional violence and medical neglect from the government and developing a gnarly stress response, we went over all sorts of coping mechanisms and healthy mindfulness and all that and not only did she never mention anything about my listening to music outside, but she was quite happy to hear me get excited and talk all about it, this wasn’t some private paid yesman thing either, so she really didn’t have to be nice or even keep me as a client, she’d be paid the same government pay either way.

So:

Is it possible that I do not have an “addiction”, nor have you established in any way how even if I did it would be “unhealthy”?

That in fact - I do not “think literally everyone else has too”, because I never said such a thing?

But that in fact many do as evidenced by the sheer size of the industry and the universal nature of the concept of music and the timeless nature of the arts plus the uniquity of headphones?

That in fact - I do not miss the “entire world around” or much of anything?

That in fact - I never declared it boring, nor made the accidental implication as you have that your world is little outside of a small, immediate environment?

That I have actually never met anyone IRL who finds anything at all about what I wrote in this thread weird whatsoever, nevermind jump to the conclusions you do or make the weird judgemental assumptions you do - and in fact, they listen to music roughly the same amount of time as me, sometimes frankly - more, even though we don’t even listen to anything in common or talk about it?

Is it possible, that in fact, I am not quite young, as I have literally stated elsewhere ITT before you made your response?

That in fact - I have not developed any screen addiction, nor even had the time or option to as a child, and can certainly remember things every other way?

That in fact - as I stated, not only have I talked to a medical professional for unrelated matters and not only was she not seeing it as a problem, but actually saw it as a good thing that I would engage with the world?

That in fact - every point you’ve made so far has been so wildly off-base, every assumption wrong, every reasoning faulty, that maybe, just maybe - if you strain your big brain muscles real hard - you maybe just think some people are just different, and that instead of judgement, you could actually learn to appreciate other people’s experiences, a food for thought, something to uh, meditate on, perhaps.

Is it possible, that maybe - just maybe - you are just plain wrong, on almost every level?

Because If I try on your shoes for just a moment - and pass down judgement like you have to me.

Then to me, it seems that the drivel you pass off as some sort of truth or reliable objective observation is merely armchair buzzword regurgitation undeserving of even the label of analysis, coming from a small, pitiful mind, resorting to judgement and condescension because it can handle little outside of your narrow and distorted view of normal built entirely on projecting externally the insecurities and issues deep within?

And it is your first steps to reflect and analyze what went wrong, why you treat people like this, how you can intellectually be honest and deal with and confront this narcissstic superiority complex that you unleash on any passerby who challenges your mental gospel?

That perhaps, it is worth critically reflecting on why anyone would treat people like this, online and god-forbid, IRL, if you do, and perhaps speak to a professional, or maybe just a friend, if you have one, about that?

Hey, at least you’re not alone, many other snoozefest normadrones ITT for you to share that experience with, provided they are real people of course, and are not what they show themselves to be - low context length LLMs.

You really think artists don’t also consume art? Heck, what inspired me to make music is listening to music.

Also, I do like your misuse of the word “objectively” and “fact”.

No, that’s not true at all. Proneness to boredom is actually a predictor of negative mental health outcomes: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S019188691930217X

That much is obvious of course, though that’s not to say I don’t appreciate you saying so, frankly it’s like a breath of fresh air after spending time watching poop be flung by monkeys with a passion for it.

Their hostility is unsurprising to me.

As a trans person I get it all the time in the form of vile transphobia.

This isn’t the same of course, this is harmless, absurdly pointless type of discourse, but it stems from the same place ultimately.

All it takes to threaten the hivemind’s simulacrum and bring out the disciples of the distorted reality fed to the closeminded and the afraid by their holy algorithmic funnels is stating the most inoffensive things plainly as they are without mincing words, and voila - holy war.

I’m sorry for you if that’s what life is to you, it’s no wonder mental health issues are common amongst folks these days, the dead eyes and blank stares drooling off into nothingness, eyes wide open, yet seeing nothing, “living in the moment”, yet feeling dead inside. I pity you, little man.

The world is there to be discovered, you just need agency to go and get it, everything is literally at your fingertips, arts, history, geography, literature, science, philosophy, film, games etc.

Music is one way to engage with the arts even while your other senses must be occupied with the chores on procurement of resources that our meat shells sadly require for the foreseeable future due to lack of advances in technology on that front.

But the good news is, It’s why we as a species invented entertainment at all.

Or maybe I just disagree with the insane amount of judgement and projection aimed at me in this thread for no fucking reason at all, after posting about something fairly common and uncontroversial, therefore I am replying with what I think.

Some of us are actually intellectually honest, we agree with the ideas we agree with and disagree with the ideas we disagree with, not everything is motivated by some animalistic desire for an argument like you seem to imply.

I’d much prefer to agree with likeminded folks or hear some well-reasoned perspectives but alas, I’m not going to agree with shit takes parroting LLM pop-psych influencer buzzword bullshit about muh stimulation muh technology in a condescending tone like I have a problem - when i never implied the opposite even though I easily could have done so and would have if I really wanted a fight - (and I would’ve made an art of it, too).

I will keep replying and stating my point and my case no matter how many cookie cutter morons yap about “meditation” or w/e else comes out their monkey-ass cranium.

I fundamentally don’t care about any of this, but I will keep replying because I want folks here scrolling by this thread - horrified by the behaviour of the commentariat swarm - wondering what they must have smoked that people parrot pop-psych bullshit about dopamine as if it were gospel and hold up their life in a Christian heaven/hell dichotomy like a 50s housewife all clued up on what’s the trendy oppressive shit to spew.

I want those folks to know that the hivemind is frail and weak and cannot stand the smallest challenge, challenge that I pose purely by existing and just saying the inoffensive and largely uncontroversial IRL things I think in a calm manner and that they are not alone in being reasonable and rational and normal people still exist out there in the world, I’m just sorry they have to read through the rest of this thought toilet of a comments section.

No, distracted by the world, away from my thoughts on the world.

When I pick my music, I set a tone and vibe of the mental journey while my body autopilots to the store and back, then everything else - inner ambitions, dreams, ideas, thoughts, observations immediate and past etc. slots in.

Just is weird in my experience. Again - I rarely see people without earphones in.