I really hoped to print stuff for myself artwork and such. I wanna make a book out of it so the paper can't be too thick. So the ideal paper I was looking for was Glossy double sided 90 gsm. Pretty much the only paper I can find that could be shipped to me was named exactly that but it is categorised as an offset paper, Honestly it is a miracle I could find that too no one wants to sell to consumers it seems that kinda paper. I asked the seller about it and they said inkjet printing could work but there is no gaurentee agianst spreading. So I guess that is what I want to know how bad can things really be? Like it won't absorb the ink at all? Is there a possiblity maybe where I can dry it with a uv light or something? Has someone tried it here? I would test it but that is the problem where I am at. I didn't buy the printer yet and I don't know if it would be worth it for me to buy the printer if this thing doens't work out. I tried to see online if anyone has experimented with it but I coudn't really see any pictures most sources just say ink just won't absorb.

Disclaimar: I did use AI to clean up what I wrote in a rush so please don't judge me. Everything I wrote is exactly in here, it only corrected the grammar.

I guess to start and give you guys some context, I am 25 now and have been a hikki pretty much since COVID. I don't know if I should call myself one since I do work (I will get into that in more detail), but other than that, I have nothing else going for me, so I think you get the picture.

I was pretty introverted growing up. When COVID happened and I stayed home for two years, I got accustomed to it. I don't know if I should feel ashamed saying this, but honestly, looking back, that was shockingly some of the best times of my life. Before that, there was just pressure, social anxiety, the fear of not fitting in, and an inability to make friends. Then suddenly, the world stopped. There was just a sense of peace for a while, and I didn't have to feel guilty about taking a moment to not think about anything at all.

Eventually, I stopped attending classes and dropped out. I started doing things I actually wanted to do, which was experiencing art. I played story-based video games and watched anime, but I didn't just experience them—I practically studied them. For example, I put 400 hours into Red Dead Redemption 2 and never even got to the last chapter, and I loved every second of it. Every once in a while, though, there were times when I realized I had no one to share this enthusiasm with, and it would make me kind of sad. But other than that, I mostly loved it.

Then came the work stuff. If I'm being honest, I am only where I am right now because I’m a bit of a nepo baby. I have an older sister who is a textbook overachiever. At the time when I was just messing around, she and her fiancé started a business and asked for my help. It really just started because they were getting overwhelmed and wanted free labor, so I figured I should at least be useful to someone, if not for myself.

Somewhere along the way, she felt guilty about having me work for no pay, so it turned into a real job and took off from there. I did work hard these past three years, and at this point, I am more of a passive architect/manager for the business. This isn't some success story, though. I only did it because I wanted to afford all the toys I wanted. I wanted an RTX 5090, an OLED TV, a Steam Deck, and whatnot. We weren't rich, so at the time, these were big goals I set for myself just so I could play video games on the best hardware.

The sad thing is, today I can comfortably afford those things and I do have them all, but I don't know if I should indulge in them—which is what this post is about, I guess.

I am at a point in my career where I think I have enough leverage to live a comfortable life just for myself without working too hard. Right now, I don't really have to work more than two hours a week aside from attending a few meetings and managing a few people. Yet, I still get paid as much as I did when I was working 12 hours a day. It's not a crazy amount of money, but it's enough that if I decide to just live for myself, it covers rent, food, the gym, and all the toys I want to play my games on the best hardware. I still have enough left over to save up and maybe travel once or twice a year.

Of course, it’s not permanent. Anything could happen—the business could go down, or markets could crash, god knows where the world is going but it is becoming less likely to affect me drastically. I am at a point where I consider myself relatively safe. Even if I lost everything, I think my skills give me enough leverage that I wouldn't see myself being unemployed for more than a few months. I would genuinely be surprised if that ended up being the case.

Now we come to the crux of the issue. I am in a dilemma between choosing two very different paths:

The Quiet Nomad

This is a lifestyle where I just live for myself, explore all the art I want, and work just enough to support it and be active in my field. It’s a lot like what the main character does in the movie Perfect Days, where the consistent things you do on a daily basis become a ritual, and that consistency makes life contented.

• The Pros: I will surely get enough sleep every day, eat good nutritious food, train the way I want to, and have plenty of time to explore my interests.
• The Cons: This path doesn't end with me doing anything "significant" with my life. I won't be super rich, and I won't have a family of my own. It won't be easy, but I think I am capable of making peace with that and still living life, even though the most joy I’ve ever gotten out of life was sharing things with people.

The Ambitious Climb

The alternative is to be ambitious and work even harder for things. This path is also equally appealing to me because I do feel satisfied working toward something and seeing it play out. And I do geniunely think that I have that hunger in me to fullfill my potential if that makes sense. I know that must sound like I am so full of myself but I don't know how else to put it. I was talking to my sister the other day about this stuff and she was like "yea, it would be a shame cause you are indeed good at this stuff" and I think I agree to some extent, I actually like playing the game. But getting rich and successful feels pointless if it's just for me; I would probably only do it if I were to start a family of my own. And providng for that future family is really the only way where I could see myself derive meaning from all fo this.

Making that decision is hard because the entire second possibility depends on me ending up with someone, which isn't exactly in my hands. In my entire lifetime, I have only mentally connected with one person in a relationship where I wanted to share things and actually felt joy. It didn't work out because we were from different cultures and her parents wouldn't accept me. I left her so as to not cause her any further pain.

At this point, I think the odds of me finding someone I can connect with that way again are very low. I am 5'6" and slightly above average-looking—not exactly someone who gets noticed by women. I tried Hinge for one week and only got four matches:

• Two were scams.
• One never bothered to reply.
• The last one stopped talking to me because I told her I don't have an Instagram since I don't like it.

I am never touching dating apps with a ten-foot pole again for the sake of my own mental health. I genuinely hate that game. And considering my social life is nonexistent, the odds get even lower.

I know this all sounds a little incel-ish, but what I mean is that, in the end, the only chance a guy like me has, is to get noticed and start a family is to become highly successful. I realize that sounds crazy, but I don't feel like I have another option.

However, I am worried about working hard and wasting my years away just to end up alone anyway. In that scenario, I would have wasted time doing things I didn't want to do, for something that never even happened.

I don't know, that is just where my mind is at right now. Am I thinking about this the wrong way? I know the Chatgpt answer for all of this would be to "try and do both," lol. But I don't think my brain is wired to work that way. If I commit to one thing, my brain just can't accept doing the other.

If I choose the ambitious path, playing a video game or doing anything else other than being productive makes me feel like I am wasting time and living a pointless life. But if I choose to just live for myself, working hard always brings me back to one question: What even is the point of doing all this? What am I doing this for?

This is something I have been struggling with for the past few months, so I guess that's why I decided to get some advice on here.