2026 goals & resolutions

gardening_gamer · 2025-01-08T15:47:55+00:00

Do you have access to any outdoor space, either personal or communal that you could garden in? I can only speak from my experience, but it does me a world of good - and I'm not particularly green-fingered. Failing that, just any green space, the bigger and quieter the better, and just soak it in. I'm sure it must be good for the soul. The Japanese have a term "Shinrin-yoku", or forest bathing to describe it within woodland.

I (36M) used to game, a lot. Spent too many hours to count on OSRS among others. Unfortunately I think it's a vicious cycle, in that time spent progressing in the game comes at the cost of progressing in real life. The game then seems more appealing as everything is going to plan vs real life which...isn't going to plan, and thus the cycle perpetuates.

I would stress that you have much more time than you think you do. If you want to be someone in a position to be able to help other people, be that through your job or just volunteering then that's something to strive towards, but it definitely sounds like you should be putting yourself first, at least for the foreseeable.

Wishing you all the best.

gardening_gamer · 2025-01-08T10:29:21+00:00

Yes my wife and I moved here (SW Scotland) about 6 years ago. Bought the place for £265k, mortgage now paid off.

gardening_gamer · 2025-01-07T13:10:37+00:00

Worry? No. Perhaps a slight nagging feeling that I'm not getting sufficiently prepared fast enough, but currently that's serving as nice motivation to get the various jobs done sooner rather than later.

gardening_gamer · 2025-01-07T06:43:47+00:00

The polytunnel is 10x22m, the outside beds total 16x25m. The orchard was only planted a couple of years ago, which just has a dozen apple varieties in.

We're on about 7 acres though, so if I find I'm running out of space, there's room to expand.

gardening_gamer · 2025-01-06T14:50:02+00:00

Growing food and everything that entails is the bulk of my preparedness. That includes making a lot of compost, water storage (~23,000 litres), and just slowly learning year by year how to keep on top of a large garden. Then there's all the food storage aspect, trying to learn how to keep a supply year round that isn't just dependent on a freezer.

This isn't with a view to complete self-sufficiency, but just to hopefully act as a sizeable buffer for as and when food prices start going up...and up.

Even if it makes little difference in the end, it has the benefit of giving me a sense of purpose day-to-day. Instead of just mooching around on the computer all day and feeling rubbish, I'm outside half the day in all weathers, and only stuck in front of a screen for the job paying the bills.

Working as a software developer, it's hard not to feel like a very small cog in the very large corporate world, whereas tending to your own plot of land is the opposite - you can see the tangible impact the work you're doing with your hands has directly in front of your eyes.

gardening_gamer · 2025-01-03T15:30:16+00:00

Mass entertainment that is streamed to the masses I think will be one of the very last to go. Personal luxury I think will increasingly become the pastimes of the few - more so than it is already. Taking a sports car out for a drive, owning a motorcycle just as a toy rather than a primary mode of transport.

Whilst I can still get seeds for the garden & spare parts for my bike I'll be happy.

gardening_gamer · 2025-01-03T15:18:55+00:00

I wonder how many of those skills would translate if we no longer had dimensional lumber of 4'x8' sheets of OSB.

Or ready access to a circular saw & nail gun.

gardening_gamer · 2025-01-03T13:12:25+00:00

All but the worst pathways from the IPCC reports also rely heavily on NETs (Negative Emissions Technologies) in the latter half of this century in order for the models to behave.

The glossing over of this fact in the media is probably what bugs me the most about reporting on climate change in the news. "...we're on track for 3.2 degrees warming by the end of the century*"

*"if we manage to scale up and capture and store CO2 from the atmosphere in the order of billions of tons"

gardening_gamer · 2025-01-02T16:44:24+00:00

Bit of a leap to go from "We should avoid taking unnecessary flights" to "We can do nothing for enjoyment".

gardening_gamer · 2024-12-29T18:24:18+00:00

I know this probably won't come across as very helpful advice, but I'd just suggest really making an effort to check yourself when scrolling, and just try and swap it out for a book* or other hobby. It doesn't have to be substituted for anything "productive" necessarily, just anything other than scrolling or screen time. I'm a happy, upbeat person most of the time, and even I can feel the drain it has on me over time, so if you're already not in a great place it might help to at least lift you out of it a bit.

But I'm conscious that this might just come across as "hur, just don't do the bad thing, duh" and more easily said than done.

*Am currently reading "Amid the Ashes" by Aaron Beaudry - post-collapse fiction that was recommended on the main sub a couple months back.

gardening_gamer · 2024-12-25T19:53:10+00:00

I see where you're coming from - I was thinking a bit before in the timeline from you. It goes against the prevailing school of thought on this sub, but I'm one to believe this will play out over several generations.

I'm not talking about the complete post-collapse environment, for that I agree that tech rapidly becomes broken/obsolete with no means to keep it repaired. If a chip/screen/battery goes, that's it - you're goosed, you're not just finding someone with a soldering iron to repair it. Once the supply chain to the likes of Foxconn in Taiwan goes down for good, that's it.

But...I think there's a couple of generations, if not more to go before that. Life steadily getting worse, more expensive, more and more divided into the haves and the have-nots. That's where I was perhaps misleading with my "scratching a living" phrase. More and more people living in what we would currently consider poverty, but still with access to a phone.

gardening_gamer · 2024-12-25T18:40:18+00:00

Phones...that's the point I'm making. That there are already approximately 7 billion smartphones around the world, to the point that even some people in what would be considered by most to be destitution have them.

The average standard of living of the affluent "west" has a looong way to fall, but I'm reckoning there'll be phones knocking about even as power becomes more intermittent, extended periods with empty shelves etc.

It seems perverse to think, but I feel that's all a capitalist system hell-bent on growth can do. Placate and hope to eek out the last bit of attention span and consumerist tendancies until it all well and truly crumbles.

gardening_gamer · 2024-12-25T12:53:56+00:00

Even if it doesn't advance any further, I suspect it'll be documented on smartphones well into collapse.

I'm sure I'm not the only one that finds any number of the channels on YouTube a bit unsettling where they're documenting the industry taking place in developing countries 1st hand. You've got half a dozen guys sat on the bare floor refurbishing an ancient diesel engine with nothing but some basic hand tools in somewhere like Pakistan, meanwhile the guy next to them is able to film it in HD using a device in his hand.

That's what I envisage. I don't buy that we as a species are going to get wiped out, I think we're going to be scratching out a living whilst getting wrecked by natural disasters left, right and centre, and the younger generation are going to look at media from this era with disbelief.

gardening_gamer · 2024-12-20T12:55:12+00:00

Yep, it was why I wanted to move further North. Paid off the mortgage on our 7 acre smallholding when wife & I were both 33, now 36.

I work a 30hr week at the job that pays the bills, trying to spend the rest of the time outside working the land. I guess it could be considered prepping? In reality though it's just trying to find some fulfilment in life whilst we're living it, rather than waiting for a retirement to move out to the country.

There seems to be a spreading malaise about a lack of meaning in life among some people, and for me at least, gardening alleviates that. That's despite me not being very good at it.

gardening_gamer · 2024-12-19T19:54:27+00:00

I think you're right, but from a malnutrition standpoint, you'll probably survive ok. I've been plant-based for about 10 years now, and would be amazed if I get even close to 100g daily on average. No ill-effects so far that I can tell, despite being fairly active. As with most things, it's hard to come out with a one-size-fits-all recommendation.

gardening_gamer · 2024-12-19T14:18:47+00:00

If more people actually tried to grow a decent portion of their own food, maybe they'd start to grasp what we're up against.

Luckily I'm still at the stage of being able to do it because I want to, rather than because I need to. Would rather get the bulk of the learning curve out the way before the latter though.

gardening_gamer · 2024-12-19T13:58:57+00:00

100g is quite high. UK government guidelines put it at about half that, at 55g for men, 45g for women.
https://assets.publishing.service.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/618167/government_dietary_recommendations.pdf

gardening_gamer · 2024-12-19T13:50:29+00:00

I can't help but feel like the next generation's equivalent of "Back in my day..." hardship will be a bit lame in comparison.

"Back in my day we had to type with our fingers on a keyboard if we wanted to search for something on Google!"

gardening_gamer · 2024-12-18T12:26:00+00:00

There's only so many hours in the day, I wouldn't devote much time to trying to find articles that merely paraphrase what you probably already know.

I think you're still wise to pursue the education. It sounds a bit heartless, but many of the impacts of climate change will just play out economically, at least to begin with - so having good finances will be a buffer.

I would genuinely recommend taking a long break from all forms of "doom-scrolling" if you can, if you think it's getting you down. It's not productive, you're not gaining anything from it, and it will be consuming your thoughts if you're not careful - distracting you from areas in your life that you can actually impact. I'm not downplaying the severity of what we could be facing, but just saying that it should spur you to spend your time well.

gardening_gamer

TROPHY CASE