this post was submitted on 31 Mar 2026
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Showerthoughts

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A "Showerthought" is a simple term used to describe the thoughts that pop into your head while you're doing everyday things like taking a shower, driving, or just daydreaming. The most popular seem to be lighthearted clever little truths, hidden in daily life.

Here are some examples to inspire your own showerthoughts:

Rules

  1. All posts must be showerthoughts
  2. The entire showerthought must be in the title
  3. No politics
    • If your topic is in a grey area, please phrase it to emphasize the fascinating aspects, not the dramatic aspects. You can do this by avoiding overly politicized terms such as "capitalism" and "communism". If you must make comparisons, you can say something is different without saying something is better/worse.
    • A good place for politics is c/politicaldiscussion
  4. Posts must be original/unique
  5. Adhere to Lemmy's Code of Conduct and the TOS

If you made it this far, showerthoughts is accepting new mods. This community is generally tame so its not a lot of work, but having a few more mods would help reports get addressed a little sooner.

Whats it like to be a mod? Reports just show up as messages in your Lemmy inbox, and if a different mod has already addressed the report, the message goes away and you never worry about it.

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[–] wpb@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

It's great that you found a way to be happy in the situation you were in. Personally, I wouldn't have been. All the time I don't have to spend worrying about whether I can feed my kids, or give them a roof over their heads, or worrying about them getting sick and me not being able to afford treatment, I use for things that enrich my life. I spend it with friends and family, I read books, every now and then I travel to a place I haven't been to before.

If you consider wanting to feed your kids and spend time with family materialistic, fine. But some folks need such shallow materialistic things to be happy. I'm one of them.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today -1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

That's 100% not what anyone considers materialistic.

Obviously, feed your children. Feed yourself. That's not materialism, that's surviving. I'm not talking about starving as some moral high ground.

I'm talking about people who stress about not going to brunch or having the latest whatever BS phone. That is materialism.

[–] wpb@lemmy.world 1 points 22 hours ago (1 children)

It sounds like you actually agree with "if people can't afford to do anything, that's not freedom", then.

[–] hansolo@lemmy.today 0 points 11 hours ago

Nope, very much the opposite. But I also know how materialism is defined and not many people in this thread seem to, through will or ignorance, neither would surprise me.

Taking a step back, this thread is tankie catnip for people who only think materialism=capitalism, and capitalism=the only bad thing ever. Sorry that this is how you find out, but socialist governments have been and remain hard materialists as well. More so than capitalists in some ways. The easiest example is that non-material social groups - religions - are generally illegal. Regardless of your personal thoughts on that, science, the "religion of materialism" is permitted. The only non-material fetishization is generally around the Party. Socialism in general is all about not letting people decide their own fates with regard to material goods at all, but having the state command all aspects of production.

If people in a capitalist country can't afford to do anything then they're in an economic prison. We can agree on that, right? But the bars of that prison, short of medical issues, are bars of your own making. If you move to a hippie commune, is that a zoo in a world where everyone is in their own prison? Or is that simply another kind of prison because they might have rules about helping out with time and effort? Those are costs, too.