However, I guess my life is strange enough so that people made assumptions around my original statements that don't reflect my meaning.

Quite frankly, I'm friendless and have very low self esteem and have felt "not good enough" for most of my life.

I remember building Lego starships with a friend a long time ago, and I felt that on a fundamental level, nothing I could ever make would match what he could build. It was like a law of nature that I'm flawed in that way.

Any new interest that came into life also came from friends. Nothing ever originated with me, I didn't have the confidence for that. Having others to collaborate with automatically validates what I do, in a way.

It's possible I simply never learned how to self validate activities.

My need for validation is a very childlike one, it's rooted in emotional neglect. I remember my mom praising other people but never finding praise within our family. One of many things that planted seeds of this sense of fundamental inferiority. Then life solidified that in various ways.

In practice, it's not binary. I'm interested because I want to make music similar to that which I like listening to.

Sometimes I get enjoyment out of it, but sometimes I lose interest maybe because I'm facing a frustration.

My question of wasting time is connected to "can I even create something worth listening to". If nothing I could make is worth listening to, then I guess I would feel the process of creation is pointless.

I've heard others write about how what they produce is worth listening to, to them. I think that is enough, but I also think I lack confidence in my own judgement. Almost like I need someone else to confirm my validity. I have recognized that as a result of emotional neglect, but I haven't figured out how to fix it.

To clarify, when I speak of "approval", I'm not imagining a successful career or financial success. It's much more basic, i.e. having a few people tell me they genuinely like something I created would do that.

> it is simply to enjoy the journey and the creativity that comes with creating music.

It's unfortunately not simple for me (again, context of long term burnout / depression etc). If I only go by enjoyment, I will watch TV and maybe read and go on bike rides until the end of my days. But that is not fulfilling in the long term. I have a creative drive, but it's rather intermittent and not enough to consistently want to do the work involved. I'm trying to nurture it.

I have experienced the process you're talking about, although to some degree I feel it's symptomatic of a lack of skill. I start out with some kind of inspiration in mind, but end up with a compromise between what I can do and what sounds good when I fiddle around with things. Part of me feels dissatisfaction that I don't know which knobs to turn to get what I want, but I suppose that's just the normal learning process (albeit less structured than those I have gone through in the past, which is its own obstacle sometimes).

Can I ask how you share music with friends? I guess this is part of my problem, I don't really have anyone I could share with or collaborate with. The few people in my life don't listen to the type of music I like.

I'm at the stage where sometimes I make something that sounds good (to me) but I know it requires work (in the "not fun" sense) to finish it and even then, it will likely never be appreciated by anyone but myself.

Which isn't a problem if the process itself is joyful, but I have to admit I've always struggled to enjoy anything that doesn't involve other people in some way (shared goal or approval of some form).

None of these problems are "new", but I feel like AI is making this question of "why do it" or "what is worth doing" even more urgent. Kind of wondering how others are affected by all this, if at all.

There are so many other ways to chat and make friends without breaking tem balance.

My thoughts when PE forced Agile on my employer were dismissed as "you're the technical expert, we're the process experts".

As someone without decision power, you read words of empowerment but your reality is a different one, and you're left resolving that dissonance on your own (quietly, otherwise you get pushed aside).

I couldn't imagine an emptier life than one where the only thing that matters is procreation. We're not Pacific Salmon.

China is bullying lots of countries in the SCS (ramming Philippine coast guard ships, building military installations in the SCS, ...). Not peaceful or responsible.

I grew up with emotional neglect and all sorts of mental health struggles that grew from that, so I find the cavalier attitude people have towards parenting and how people in the world treat each other in general appalling.

My parents (and honestly most, in my opinion) were not qualified to be parents. They were deeply broken themselves and didn't even have awareness of that.

I know humans could do better, but looking at the state of things, greed and hatred and aggression in all forms from interpersonal to wars are propagating themselves as the most successful traits. In a dog eat dog world, I'd much rather leave everything to animals, at least they don't destroy the entire planet when they maul each other

This argument is rather one dimensional. If you're trying to solve the problem in modern developed society, you can't look to what happens at a more primal level, you need to address the actual concerns people are living with.

We have more choice and visibility into options and unfair power structures now, and unless your solution is to remove choice again, then looking back to a time when people depended on children for survival and safety isn't going to offer much relevant insight. Instead it's going to lock you into positions with no way out.

The question is really whether negotiations were going on in good faith with the actual goal of realistic compromise.

None of us know that side, I would assume.

This is how it's presented: "Temporary chats Opens in a new window don't appear in Recent Chats Opens in a new window or Gemini Apps Activity Opens in a new window and aren't used to train models or personalize your experience."

I'm guessing you're maybe on iOS? I don't see these UI elements, not in the App on my phone nor in direct web access.

Ultimately, I think the crossover memory is useful, but I'd really like to know exactly what's in there and an ability to validate/adjust, not just on/off.

It doesn't seem like there's a way to inspect or alter what kind of information Gemini had saved as "important information" about me (apart from deleting chats entirely, apparently).