our baseline entertainments are better than the long tail of negative interactions one persists through to get to the great ones. in doomscrolling vs. disappointment, more people are picking doomscrolling.<p>older than the examples, but I have done this. live alone on a large rural property, walden style, tech comp no family, have online interactions for remote work, old irc channels, take some sport, fitness, and music training as kind of weekly rhythm, family lives in other time zones. it was an ideal I thought I could achieve and then have it to share with others. relationships and friendships with any personal connection or intimacy still manage to fail, lots of reasons but I'm the constant. only way to sustain anything is to keep it at a polite distance with no expectations.<p>issue i suspect is that meaning comes from the cohering and persistence of relationships, and without that persistent mutual understanding, meaning just seeps away and leaves a flat state of inertia. no advice other than to avoid this example. I sympathize with these young people, it's as though they don't see a present or future in which there is meaning for them, or in which they are a participant, and so they are just withdrawing and waiting for the next life instead of engaging this one. it's a unique and recently invented trap, avoid it as best you can.