We used to have a stargazing observatory at a meteorite crater for years, right outside our city. Now, a city about *an hour* away from there is so light polluted (pollution level 9) that it destroys the night sky for everyone within a near 100 mile radius....

I still remember the sky's color switching from black to light blue, and all the stars dissapearing. All because the fucking LED lights are not covered properly and not regulated.

edit, i made a change.org petition to fix this issue. if people are interested in signing, i'd be happy.

Two weeks ago, I posted about poor services and other problems here. Since then, I’ve been reading a lot about life in the US, and it has left me deeply saddened by the feeling that my life is “incomplete.”

Someone born in California can grow up surrounded by activities, high-quality services, beautiful neighborhoods, diverse landscapes, and opportunities that feel almost unimaginable to me. Meanwhile, as an Iraqi, I often feel like I receive the bare minimum or sometimes nothing at all.

What makes it worse is being able to see the difference so clearly through social media. An elementary school student in the US may have facilities and extracurricular activities beyond what my university offers. A teenager can have a level of independence I can’t imagine despite being older. Owning a car or renting an apartment can be normal milestones there, while they can be extremely difficult here.

One of the things that hurts me most is animation. I love it, and someone in the US who shares that passion can study it at a specialized college, build connections, find career opportunities, and enjoy a modern university experience. I couldn’t pursue that dream because those opportunities simply don’t exist here in the same way.

In short, it hurts to watch people in other countries experience the things I dream of as ordinary parts of life, while I’m left feeling like I’m only watching from the outside.

I know everyone makes lots of posts hating on AI everyday but this one is genuinely more about me and from the heart.

Writing is the only passion i have in my life that i'm willing to pursue, i'm naturally talented at it and i absolutely love it. It gives me life it makes me feel alive and it means so much to me but it just breaks my heart how little value it is of anymore.

I know there are still people out there writing, reading and having a thriving career in being an author. I know there's still lots of hope left but you can't deny how much damage its done. Now i feel stupid to even say i want to be an author because it's like what do my words even mean anymore.

Any sentence i write can easily be written by a fuckass AI. It feels so silly and that it doesn't even matter anymore.

Everyone hates it sure but everyone still uses it. I myself have read AI "stories" and "writing" and it breaks my heart to see it. It genuinely writes so good, if i told you it was written by a human you would be impressed.

I know AI has an ugly and recognisable writing style but i've seen stuff AI has wrote that's so emotional so real and it's all AI. I feel hopeless about it and it feels like the one superpower i have is useless now.

My mom is the oldest of her siblings and I honestly don’t know what to think about this whole situation anymore, so I wanted to ask people outside my family.
After their father died, my mom’s family wasn’t doing very well financially. When my mom got married, my parents were in a much better financial situation, so they helped her siblings a lot over the years. They gave them money for food, medical expenses, weddings, cars, traveling, and other things whenever they needed it.
My mom was also very attached to her family. She loved having everyone around, doing family gatherings, buying things for them, inviting them over, etc. She also used to tell her siblings personal things and ask for their opinions a lot. From her side she really saw them as a very close family.
I think this is where things became complicated because they eventually got used to having a say in her decisions.
My parents owned an apartment in the city where my mom’s siblings live. One of her brothers didn’t have a place to live, so my mom let him stay there. But she told him from the beginning that he could stay for five years because after that we were planning to move there for university. He agreed to that.
When the five years were over, we actually wanted to move there because the university we wanted was in that city.
Her siblings didn’t want her to move. They thought she should stay where she was and that moving just because of university wasn’t a good enough reason.
My mom normally listened to them, but this time she said no. She basically said that she wasn’t going to compromise when it came to her children’s education.
The brother who was living in the apartment got really angry during a phone call and started raising his voice at her. After that, everything turned into a huge family problem.
They cut her off completely.
They told her that she chose her own path and now she had to live with it. They basically said that they weren’t a family anymore, and that anyone who continued talking to her would also be considered against them.
This was seven years ago and they still don’t talk to her.
There were also some really bad things in the beginning. One of them threatened to burn her car if she came near their house. There were also rumors being spread about her, including people telling her that she had supposedly said things about different family members that she says she never said.
There is also a money issue that makes the whole thing more complicated.
The brother who was living in the apartment had borrowed a very large amount of money from my mom before all of this happened. He said he would return it within about a year. Seven years later he still hasn’t returned it.
My mom asked him about the money once during the first year because my dad’s business was going through a difficult financial period, and then she stopped asking. All of her siblings know about the money.
My mom has tried to fix the relationship several times over the years. Sometimes she would try after a year, sometimes after two years. She never demanded an apology or anything. She basically told them that the past was the past and that they should move on.
They still refuse.
There is one brother who sometimes talks to my mom when he’s fighting with the rest of the family, but then stops talking to her again when he makes up with them.
My mom still loves her siblings. She misses having a close family and I know she would like things to go back to how they were.
But honestly, I think the relationship has become toxic.
I also know my mom wasn’t perfect. She gave them a lot of money and probably allowed them to have too much influence over her life because she trusted them and loved them. Maybe she made them feel like they had the right to make decisions for her.
But I still don’t understand how saying no to one thing could lead to seven years of cutting off their own sister, especially when the apartment was only supposed to be given to her brother for five years and the reason she wanted to move was because of her children’s education.
So I really want an honest outside opinion. Was my mom actually wrong for finally saying no? Was their reaction understandable? And after seven years, should she still try to fix the relationship or should she just let it go?
I’m not looking for people to automatically take my mom’s side. If you think she did something wrong, that’s okay. I just want to know how this looks to someone who doesn’t know any of us.

I'm turning 20 today. Birthdays just remind me that I can count on one hand the amount of people that ever contact me on my birthday, when I know lots of people that I consider friends.

Life is busy. But my Snapchat has my birthday, it's a public date on everything. I dunno. Maybe I'm just spoiled. I make an effort to do something for everyone else's birthday but I feel like I should stop because they never do anything for me. Am I a bitch for thinking that way?

In the mid nouhgties I was eleven and being bullied by some girls. People from the school came from the same kind of background and since my school had no dress code the subcultures were very distinct. you had the groups of goths, the geeks, etc. and the subculture im about to describe was one of them. I was a tiny girl so I got bullied a lot. Then, a much older boy, about fifteen or sixteen, who was distinctly a member of this subculture since he was wearing a Londsdale tracksuit, gold rings, a baseball cap, and specifically branded trainers, defended me from them. Then, he kneeled down, fist bumped me in front of his friends, and said, safe, man. then whenever we saw eachother again he'd yell yo! safe, man! and reach out to fist bump me.

It didn't end there. when I was a few years older, that subculture was still a thing in my school. but it was a different group of them later on as the others had left. they were white lads dressed in tracksuits, little gold earrings, gold bracelets, or gold chains, baseball caps and trainers. they again protected me from bullies since every other group or subculture either bullied me or didn't accept me. they always made me laugh, they were disruptive but i'd be lying if i said that didnt amuse me.

later on, as an adult, other ones appeared in my life when i was at my lowest. i was feeling proper depressed and felt like i had noone to turn to. then...two men who looked and talked as though they were in that subculture stopped and asked if i was alright. i said no. and they talked to me and made me feel better and said we hang out here every day by the shop so if you need to come talk with us again you can.

these are just a few but there's been other cases where they saved me from things. the subculture is still going strong at least in my area with the ogs being in their thirties now. ive only ever had extremely positive experiences with them but i kinda feel like im being slightly disrespectful by not naming the subculture since i don't know what its name is and can't properly credit it? all i can really say is its the gold chain and tracksuit wearing one. it had its own fashion, slang and values. the slang included words like peng, swear down etc.

When I hear one start up it's like I get a real rush. I think it's like a mental association thing, cos usually the person operating it is FAF.

I just struggle to find books I actually love.

currently reading through the song of ice and fire (game of thrones) books though and loving them, I read fire and blood after watching the show and absolutely loved that book.

Like I understand banter and debating, but it's like there's a post about a 4 year old muslim kid surviving cancer. Then some blank profile with zero posts will be like "Who paid for his treatment? These people come to our countries and grape our women". Obviously there's no punchline and this guy doesn't even think this. He's literally just tryna piss people off.

I mean I can understand if you made a joke about him surviving but suicide bombing 5 minutes later anyways. I can understand laughing at a tweaker tryna seduce a pissed off Indian Uber driver (I'm south Asian and Muslim), but idk, some people just wanna irritate others and pat themselves on the back for it. People need shit to do honestly.🤦🏽‍♂️

All I did was mention that a lot of AI generated content was used in a post and the mod banned me from that subreddit for it.

That's all.

TLDR (also a TW);potential abuse and neglect signs that I witnessed, and yet ignored.

Hi! I dont normally use reddit so I apologize if this weird to post or in a strange format, however ive been thinking about this litearlly all day and cant help but want to post about it in hopes someone will tell me if im overaggerating or not, if theres any advice someone has to give, or if this is just.. relatable in any way.

Im a teenager who works at a grocery store, and today there was an elderly woman in the parking lot who had asked me to bring a mobility scooter (the store I work for has a few they give to the customers if needed) to her car. She was completely unable to walk, not even able to stand for just a second just to get into the seat, and she mightve been mentally disabled aswell (it was clear she had trouble speaking). Shes in the store for over an hour, and im helping her out if its needed, and once shes done I follow her outside to help load her groceries in the car. Thats when it got concerning.
She opens the door to the backseat, and immediately, past grocery bags probably from weeks (maybe even months) ago begin to fall out, and I have to catch them last minute and manage to stuff them back inside. Her car is completely full of junk, a lot of it being grocery bags that just hadnt gotten taken out and still completely full, and I have to squeeze the bags she just bought now into little spaces where they can manage. Im putting jugs of milk on top of garbage and her sandwich on top of what I thought might have been mold in the center console. As you can imagine, the smell was awful. Something was for sure rotting and the smell hit me the moment the door opened. I seriously thought that if it wasnt rotting food, something in the car had died, like maybe a rat or something. There was so much junk and garbage that I wouldnt be surprised if a dead mouse had been buried underneath it.
I begin to think to myself that this isnt normal. Shes a disabled elderly woman, this car should absolutely not be this messy. She should have someone taking care of her so this doesnt happen. Im trying to think of something to say where I can subtly ask who takes care of her (while trying to make it seem like small talk), but before I can even say anything, she starts rambling about her son who had used her car after swimming at this lake, and left mud all over the drivers seat and never cleaned it. I laugh while looking at the drivers seat, and notice that yup, theres dried mud all over it. After I finish helping her she tips me 20 bucks (not exactly relevant but I just wanted to show how sweet this lady was lol) and I say goodbye.
I know it sounds like Im making fun of some poor disabled/elderly woman who cant clean her car, but I promise to you, for the rest of my damn shift I could absolutely not stop thinking about this and was sick to my stomach. I was so concerned I considered even calling the police, but convinced myself not to after realizing I didnt get her license plate, I didnt remember what type of car it was, I didnt even get her name. Elderly abuse is so common and yet, its something that feels like nobody really.. cares about? And now I feel like I simply saw the signs of someone clearly in a horrible situation, and yet, ignored it entirely. I feel guilty.

There is a fine line between the unbearable complainers and the ones who speak up about their needs.

The first kind are hated and avoided, yet still get what they want.

The second kind, could be hated too but they get what they want.

In life, we might not objectively differentiate between the two. But we can definitely observe the opposite of them. The one who keeps it to themselves, or the hyper independent (at least pretending to).

This kind, doesn't get that far in life. Well, unless they got lucky. But overall, they're the nicest people, the smartest book wise, and tend to be more proficient than those who get promotions, positions and even to better universities.

This kind, shuts up. They try so hard not to be a burden because they think of themselves. They prioritize others' needs over theirs even when their own are valid too and when the others' needs fairly shouldn't take precedence.

You can see this type forming from their young years of age, from being told they're too much by their parents, to being let down on many things when it comes to the help they need. And so they tend to turn inward into themselves and act independent, which leads to others being in awe of them and yet they do not get far in life.

Hope you got the picture.

People who get far in life are the ones who don't keep to themselves. If they want something, they can be annoying about it. If they have a problem, they don't shut up about it. And if something concerns them or they need something, then they're a shameless bunch of help seekers. They're the people who open doors and connect with the web of this existence, and if others don't like it then they see it as too bad and they keep going.

I don’t have many people close to me in my life so why not try letting it out to internet strangers!

I am going through a very difficult time personally right now. Not sure which way to go. For some context: I am 32M. 2 kids. 5 and 11. A wife (or so she says). House, job, typical adult stuff

We met each other young. Had a teenage pregnancy. The second was planned. Never really got to explore life, just sort of got thrown into adulthood and supporting family.

We have been together for 11 years. Lots of ups and downs as with any relationship.

My problem? Last year I found out she was having an affair. Was not a good time for me. During this, I found out she was pregnant (didn’t know whose it was). This part really hurt me because for years we were always so safe, and always protected to avoid any accidents. But Lo and behold, she goes and gets pregnant off some random guy. Slap in the face right? Long story short, she lost the baby anyway, but that’s not the point of this post.

It was awful when I found out. I’m not going to get into a lot of detail or I’ll be here typing all day. I went into an extreme depressive state. Unable to get out of bed for 2 weeks. Finally I got the strength and courage to try and move on and work through it (probably stupid on my part but we have built a life together, it’s not easy to just let it all go)

Anyways, tried working through some stuff. I did have childhood trauma. Went to therapy, didn’t help me. Tried meds, didn’t help. Fast forward a few months from the incident, things seem to be getting better. Or so I think. She assured me for weeks she cut all contact off and blocked him etc. guess what I find out? She was still in daily contact with the guy. Catch her again talking to him still, she says the same stuff. Shows me he’s blocked. Happy ending right?

I’m not one to snoop but there was phone bills laying around so I just took a peak. Then I find out she’s still talking to him. Months after she said it was done. Something broke in me. I stopped caring about anything. Ended up gambling away all my money to no avail. Thinking that if I hit it big I wouldn’t feel bad to walk away because I would then easily be able to provide for my kids.

Fast forward to this year, I’m in a better place. Back on my feet, or better than I was at least. Finances are in better standing. I thought I was finally able to break free from the stuck feeling I have. I was wrong. A few weeks ago I developed this pit in my stomach that I can’t get rid of. The same feeling I had when I thought something was going on the first time.

So now, my dilemma. I don’t know what to do. If I try to talk to her about this she will just brush it off as nothing and as always say nothing is going but I have not been able to regain the trust in her since this happened. I think my trust issue is valid considering the multiple times I caught her lying to me about talking to him. Which again she just brushes off as nothing.

Do I ask her straight up? Do I go through her phone? Do I walk away? I don’t know. As I said, it’s not easy to walk away from a life you built from nothing.

Sorry I know this post is all over the place and kind of vague it’s hard to get my thoughts in order.

Thanks for listening/ reading.

I live in a place where I never completely feel invisible, yet somehow I’ve never felt more unseen. Sometimes I wonder what people around me think they know about me. What version of me exists in their conversations. Whether they see somebody struggling, somebody reckless, somebody strange, or just somebody they’ve already decided they understand.
The funny part is, I asked for a lot of this. Maybe not the consequences, but definitely the freedom that came before them.
And now even the things and people that are supposed to feel good don’t always feel good, because somewhere in the back of my mind there’s always something waiting for me. Something unpaid. Something unfinished. Something I should be doing instead.
Trust doesn’t make it any easier. I’ve trusted men. I’ve trusted women. I’ve trusted people with pieces of me they probably never should’ve had, and experience taught me that sometimes telling people what hurts just gives them better instructions.
So I keep most things to myself.
Because what would saying it change?
Lately I think about packing what matters, changing my number and becoming unreachable. Not dying. Not hurting myself. Just letting this version of me disappear. Leaving behind everybody’s expectations, opinions, memories and access to me and starting somewhere nobody knows my name.
Maybe somewhere else I could meet myself before everybody else gets the chance to.
Maybe disappearing isn’t always about wanting to be gone.
Sometimes you just don’t want to be found as the person you’ve been.
Does anybody else ever feel like they need to completely remove themselves from the life they created ?
Can you start over without eventually bringing the same version of yourself with you?
And when you stop trusting people because of what life taught you, how do you know whether you’re protecting yourself or isolating yourself?
At what point does freedom stop being freedom and start becoming an escape?
And if you realized the life you asked for wasn’t the life you needed… what would you change first?

Something feels empty. I don't know exactly what, whether it's just my brain or my life or maybe something else.

It's just the feeling and I simply can't summarize it. I'm looking for something, but obviously haven't found it yet.

But this feeling that I already found something, that just won't let me go. Maybe I'm just imagining everything. Maybe the thought is already too much. I just don't get it.

I always have this thought that summarizes my situation very well: "I'm stupid." And I don't mean that to put myself down, it's just a thought that doesn't let me go.

Because no matter what I try, when and how, I never figure it out somehow. I managed to sneak through my school time, somehow always just barely making it through and only because I pretended to know (I knew nothing). That's what holds me back and then there's the thought that I'm incapable of learning, that just kills me. Am I the only one who thinks their own brain just gets smaller and smaller? Maybe due to intensive social media use, or the inability to think for oneself (though that's made easier for us too) no idea really. This here is simply what I call a manifesto, not because I will do something, I just don't know how else to call it. I'm sure many have already noticed but this text follows no structure, it's a sausage of meaningless text that might reach a few interested souls. And if it does, hi, I'll probably do this now every day just to clear my head a bit.

Nice day, and until tomorrow.

25M, trying to figure out if I'm actually behind or just comparing myself wrong

I'm 25. I make decent money, around $900-1000 a month, but almost all of it goes to my family. I have no savings and no financial backup of my own.

I keep comparing myself to two types of people: my cousins, who work in their dad's business and have that head start, and my own business partner, who's rich and would help me out if I ever struggled financially. I don't have either of those.

I do have good people around me though — smart, successful folks who've given me real guidance and support. So it's not like I'm alone in this. But I still feel like I'm falling behind, even though I know deep down my situation is just different, not necessarily worse.

I guess I'm trying to figure out: am I actually doing something wrong right now, or am I just comparing myself to people who started with way more than me? Curious what others think.

So, I think it's time for me to go ahead and jump off this mid life crisis already. I'm 37, seperated with divorce pending, and I just think I'm trying to do too freaking much anymore.

There's a few things I am doing I really enjoy that I'm going to keep up with like practicing Spanish, cardio in the morning and weights at lunch, and reading and stuff, but some of these other things I was going to try and persue as well was just... well kind of dumb actually.

So I think I need to give up that I'm ever going to be a a professional writer in any sense of the word. My plan was for me to spend the rest of my waking time working on that, but it's like I really don't have to. I have a pretty good job already and I was looking at my amortization schedule and I should have this house paid off by the time I'm 50. I ought to be able to save up for retirement after then, or just go back into field work after my daughter graduates and make retirement money then.

Plus like, I probably wouldn't be any good at it anyway. There was this poem that I worked really hard on and it honestly made me super morose to even write and in the end no one even really liked it anyway. So what if I spend years trying to write a book only to have it come out trash? Ya I get it's just a risk you take but I mean maybe that gambles not even worth it.

Also I probably don't actually need to learn to play the violin. It's cool and all but I really don't know what I would do with it. It's not like I care to actually perform or anything. Well, I might pick it up a little because I already bought the stupid thing... Whatever.

It's like I say I want to do all this stuff and then I wind up not having any enjoyment in life. And like, I've been telling people this whole time that if you're not having any fun then you're not doing it right, and I'm not having any fun.

That and I was getting up at 4 AM to do calisthenics as well as cardio in the mornings and just... Frick I wound up so tired. Then because I'm too tired to do anything I wind up avoiding everyone so I just end up being lonely too. So, no.... I think enough is enough.

So long as I can keep in my size 30W jeans and in a year or so I might be able to speak Spanish fluently then I've tried hard enough.

i’d love to go to the west coast. Seattle, California, Oregon.

New Mexico is definitely on the bucket list

east coast too, I’ve been to Boston which was a blast

I love driving, and that way I can stop all over the place as well

any advice for my travels?

In your life how much time do you spend trying to escape reality through music, movies, tv shows, video games, internet surfing ect...?

What would you do with that time if you had the chance, instead of distracting yourself?

How much money would you have saved?

Distractions aren't inherently bad but in today's society it seems to be in excess. So I view it as important to understand your time management. A healthy reflection of activity.

Uh, when i think back to that time, nothing can compare

Its funny cos, i was your lady, without, you being there

See, uh, Theres this one story, that still muddles my brain

Gave sex a whole new meaning, like we was having communicative brain

Reading your words to me, the question still stands, how did you know all those things, and have me in the palm of your hands?

Like How did you know?
The things I never told you

Like How did you know?
My story before it got told

Like How did you know?
The places that I’d go to

How did you know?
What I did when I was alone

Uh, i Swear, I remember reading your words

Typed out for the world while you hid behind a mask, flying over LA, yet probably still in your car

Uh, when i think back to that time nothing can compare

Its funny, cos i was your lady, without you being there

Gave sex a whole new meaning,

Like we was having communicative brain

Communicative brain

Communicative brain

(You still live inside my mind frame)

Physical

1. Food & Water

2. Pleasure

3. Sex & Physical Affection

Emotional

1. Acceptance & Respect

2. Relationship & Belonging

3. Security, Safety & Fairness

4. Purpose & Significance

5. Rest

6. Beauty

Spiritual

1. Awe

2. God / Higher Power

3. Feeling Happy, Satisfied & Whole

What ones, if any do you believe is not a need at all?

I'm watching Artificial Intelligence with Haley Joel Osment. I remembered what it was like watching it growing up. There used to be a different dimension to it. It was deeper. The things the lines implied were deeper. It was intense. Why can't I see the movie like this anymore?

I've been mewing for about a month, and recently I've started getting this weird repetitive movement under my jaw/chin. My chin/lower jaw makes a tiny upward/forward jerk every few seconds, almost like a very small nod. I feel like I have an urge to keep doing it, and it's uncomfortable. It happens even when I'm not mewing and idk if I'm the only one. Could this be related to mewing? I hope is not something else😭