I think Idaho Winter by Tony Burgess does this pretty well. It’s a wild read.

He’s also so so funny! I expected a dark humour but he is so sharp and witty.

It was, but I am actually doing really well now, generally. Stable and supportive partner. Love and joy on the daily!

Have some health issues but I feel like who doesn’t these days? It does make having friends a struggle but I have a lot of… acquaintances and small relationships can be fulfilling, in their own way.

Generally great relationships with my family, minus several humans who have been downgraded to biological associates.

On the whole pretty excellent and like to think I’m doing as well for those around me as I can despite my limitations.

Sorry, unsuspecting victims, for the wall of text, the word vomit needed out, I suppose.

One specific family member, hope that’s okay. But I could never tell my mom about when I was molested on a work trip with her ex-partners company. One of the families took in troubled boys and I woke up in the cabin with him in my bed. Hands in my clothes and drunk as hell. I beat him so bad. One of the other actual children of employees woke up and helped pull me off him and got him out of there. We never talked about it. I don’t know what he(the helper) knew at the time. What I do know is if I ever tell my mother this she will drive and she will one hundred percent kill the people who brought that monster into my life. And I love her too much to put her through that (both having to hear it, and the murder, and the subsequent jail time).

Okay, so my partner is just recently divorced from his years-estranged wife. He does not know if he wants to get married again, but I do. In loving him and being loved by him I found the reason people would want to tie their lives so fully with another’s. You are theirs and they are yours.

This bothered me for a long time, and I promise I’m coming to something (that I think might be) relevant to your situation.

I read a book… where the crawdads sing? I’m pretty sure. Anyhow a line in the book rang true with me, “we are married like wolves and geese are married” and I love that so much.

So, while you cannot marry her in a legal sense, you can be romantic as fuck.

Also! Just thought of this while typing. Do a commitment ceremony, nothing legal obviously but maybe do a cool cultural marriage ceremony like jumping over a broom around a fire or any of the myriad other marriage ceremonies other cultures use.

Anyhow I’m sorry she’s having a hard time and I wish you and yours (and theirs (= ) all the very best. I can imagine a poly relationship could be difficult at times but it sounds like you’re doing all the right things.

Stay awesome!

Well I love you and I’m proud of you for being you (=

That’s exactly what I thought… it’s just empathy with extra steps?

World War II: The Sequel “Let’s Gidderdone Right”

Hey man I feel you. I should have added that I live rural and they are working cats as well as pets.

I’m sorry I caused you such anger.

Be well.

I’m so glad you enjoy!

Shooter Jennings is another you may enjoy, very alt-country southern rockish.

Lukas Nelson and The Promise of the Real is a great band that is also alt-country but more like indie-ish beach rockish bluesyness. It’s hard to define lol.

Enjoy your adventures into alt-country and if you want more recommends hit me up!

Don’t forget about virtual influencers which is a horror show I just learned about!

Sturgill Simpson! Song is called Turtles all the way down and the music video is also pretty epic.

Ooooh I have not heard this one before, I like it. I’ve used cowbro in the past but generally just go for bro-country. Gonna throw supermarket cowboy into the mix.

My kind of country music:

“There’s a gateway in our minds That leads somewhere out there, far beyond this plane Where reptile aliens made of light Cut you open and pull out all your pain Tell me how you make illegal Something that we all make in our brain Some say you might go crazy But then again, it might make you go sane”

That was super informative, thank you.

I didn’t mind a good infobot in a niche sub, but moving exclusively to lemmy has made me realize just how insidious the bots and sponsored content are over there. I felt attacked, for lack of a better word, by them even if I wasn’t interacting with them.

I wonder how much of reddit is dark internet and how much is real users, and how expotentially that might grow. It should be interesting to observe the collapse at any rate.

Since you stipulated our species, to me, the answer is an external threat to the whole. Aliens, higher or lower dimensional creatures, cryptids, flame unicorns sharting lava, even angels or demons if we want to get real wild.

Even just the threat of an existential terror such as these and probably a lot I missed, (feel free to add to the list! Feed me your existential threats!) has the potential to bring the species together to fight on a larger scale.

However this doesn’t eliminate war just moves the focus. So I’m not sure if I’ve answered your question or not but I had fun doing it!