I've been playing the shit out of Assetto Corsa Competizione for a sim racing league I'm in. Weekly races, streamed and commentated. Good stewarding, good people. It's a blast! I end up staying up til like 1am on race nights because everyone hops in a party to watch the replays and talk about incidents, passes, etc.

I guess to answer the specific question, it's not what I want, but it's where I'm at and I'm OK with it. The risk of racing could, quite literally, kill me or maim me beyond repair, and I have somewhat less-risky alternatives. I go to local races to watch, I keep up with professional racing and watch events basically 32 weekends out of the year. I also am just a big motorsport fan, so I watch some IMSA, WEC, and F1 when I can. I guess, identity-wise, I have transitioned from being a racer to someone who has raced, but the door will forever remain open for me to return when I want. I'm just happy with the position I've found myself in anyway.

I grew up racing motorcycles. I do a lot of 2-wheel stuff; mountain bikes, recently dabbled in BMX, and if I could, I'd still race motocross. The financial requirements of that are wild though, so I'm using these non-engined outlets to cope lol. My job is fine; it's not going to get me to a point where I can race again, but I'm not actively seeking it at this point, and the alternatives are pretty nice anyway.

I mean...yeah, this is kind of what it looks like. You find outlets eventually. It only being a "hobby" is not a positive or a negative. Get what you want from it; do you want it to be your every day thing? There are ways to work into some commercial music work; it's not great pay or easy, but that's the requirement. No bachelor's needed. But I don't think I'd want to monetize anything in the professional sense. I don't think people get into their hobbies for the great pay, but for what it provides. If you get into music, it isn't going to be glamorous unless you are lucky. It might not even bring financial stability. It's also not going to just be sitting with your thoughts and writing music; lot of marketing and self-promotion, lot of putting yourself out there to hope that people resonate with it. Lot of very long days, weeks, months, with 0 guarantee of a pay-off.

A lot of people think being comfortable is settling, and in a sense, it may be that. But it's also where a lot of people exist for a reason. I look at it as you could either raise your floor and have a lower ceiling for "true" happiness, or lower your floor and have a taller ceiling, so you have a wider range. There is no promise that you will be at the ceiling, or near it, or even above your current floor. May fluctuate wildly, you may have a very slow, steady climb. No one knows.

Firefighters also get a sweet pension to my understanding. Idk your age, but I assume late 30's to 40's, and you're staring a decent retirement in the face in the next 10 years. Lot of life left to fit in there as well, and what would be a measurably comfortable one at that. Just a stranger on the internets opinion though!

Yeah, it got a dead senator's sister appointed to replace him with absolutely no experience.

This has been the most maddening thing about it; it's just whole-hearted willful ignorance. NO ONE is doing gender conversions on kids. I guess if you want to make the argument that hormones are thrown around as teenagers, sure, but teenagers get on birth control, there are plenty of legitimate hormone therapies done already.

I've had decent progress with some more conservative, non-religious family members on the "indoctrination" shit by likening it to religion. No rules on what wild shit religion can do; promising you to an older man, severing social ties, and putting you in a situation where you don't know you're being abused. No crackdowns, no vehement marches, no violence over that. But an adult family and their near-adult child can't make medical decisions with oversight from a medical professional? It's absolute, willful ignorance at best.

Doing my first BMX race next weekend. Really going into the deep end, and going to a National-level race. I've been on a track 1 time previously. Now I've done a loooooot of MX racing in my life, so I'm comfortable on any kind of bike, but I haven't raced anything in over a decade probably, so the nerves are there.

Anyone interested, we have !motocross@lemmy.world for discussion. It has lapsed as of late, as I have been (quite literally) the only participant, but trying to do more to get it going. Join if you want, I'll try to get Race Threads going as well!

I've been having similar issues, and when I am given an answer or find it way back in comment histories, I'll copy and paste it into mine and reference the older post. This seems to help a lot in Discords where it serves you results based on date since post. 

I missed those, I go through phases with him. I get it though, guy cranks out videos and probably gets old using the same cave diving stock videos lol.

Scary Interesting does some horror documentary stuff about, idk, scary situations people have been stuck in. No AI images, which is saying something, cause he always has some kind of background or graphic going.

Yeah I'd be cool with this. As I get older, and I realize just how much time modders put into these things. And in a field so hard to break into, I'm all about them having a way to get some financial support for their time, effort, and skills. I also realize that the platform costs money, and some portion would go to the parent company. But it would have to be something reasonable, otherwise it's just exploitative. Which is the kinda company WotC is, so...lol

That definitely tracks with what I know of WotC. Sucks, cause I'd be mroe than happy to pay both modders, especially if it was quality content, and if WotC wants a reasonable cut, then that's just part of it I suppose. But nah...they suck lol