Philosophy is excellent food for thought, working through a MOOC course (MIT/Yale?) and doing the prescribed readings might strike your fancy. Happy to give more specific recs if you have some existing curiosity about a topic. Side note that it’s difficult to find people to talk to online about serious philosophical topics, the options I’ve seen (discord groups, facebook groups) usually aren’t very engaging but the reading and lectures and contemplation are engaging on your own imo.

Watch ancient history documentaries like the Fall of Civilizations or History with Cy channels on youtube (Fall of Civilizations is also/originally a podcast if you prefer). Whenever I am feeling empty of interesting thoughts this is my go to. When I watch frequently I constantly find my thoughts combining and recombining history with my current experience in a way that feels awfully close to intellectual stimulation. I also find it gives some mildly comforting perspective on current events.

Built to purpose gadgets. Getting into arduino or similar as a hobbyist can be intellectually engaging. The process of identifying something in your space you could enhance then drafting and executing a plan (including some basic programming) is kind of like a puzzle. Building things you don’t need like an LED based checklist for chores that resets every day, a pedestal that spins to give a house plant even sunlight, or a solar powered bird house might be a fun challenge.

Edit to add that if you live near a university professors will usually let you unofficially audit their class if you’re interested in a topic and have time during the week.

Find a nice waterfall and build a hut by it

Flow charts or bullet lists as visual aid. The higher position your interlocutor is in the simpler you should try to keep your point. If you need their input on a project only bring them one A vs B decision at a time.

Remindme! 13 years

Completely plausible! Have you aged since? Or stopped aging at 27?

Edit: If not maybe you needed to add a few drops of purple eyeglass-cleaner sample.

Can relate but I made potions in the bath. With various colors of shampoo. In actual glass test tubes and such from the science supply store (probably not wise @my parents but all the little glass bottles were adorable).

“Passionately Support The Machine While It Crushes Everyone Including, Eventually, Me”

That must feel soul sucking to build :(

I like my Ahinsa shoes a lot, but they might be around the same price point as Vivo.

It only shows day not night

The american government was designed to serve exactly the people it’s still serving (rich merchants and landowners). It’s working extremely well, they just lied to you about what it was designed to do.

I want to hike to Mordor

I’m predicting a colosseum fight or something for that america’s anniversary celebration executive order. Trump loves the UFC/WWE

Maybe to stock people since they panic at everything but it’s way up overall

As a general rule I think it’s best to take ideas on their own internal merit without attaching yourself too strongly to particular figures. People are fickle but a well founded idea can transcend its author.

That doesn’t mean you should esteem someone for having one good thought or withhold your contempt of their general character though.

Me playing Another Crab’s Treasure over break

I think reddit skews older and therefore so does Lemmy, but the more younger people who join the more likely we are to get a bit of a snowball effect going! Hopefully some others in your age demographic see this post and suggest something. What are some things you feel sets gen z apart? My younger sister would be considered on the older end of gen z but I don’t think her interests are particularly standard.

I do think forum style communities like reddit and lemmy/kbin are more focused on particular hobbies which span generations more easily. For example I have a background in audio and spend a lot of time on the Gearspace forums which skew much older than me, but that doesn’t make me feel particularly out of place except for the clear class divide (like people recommending really expensive gear to newbies or talking about how they write from their mountain retreat).

Main character hard to relate to

A lot of rich people like to feel like they’re getting an ‘authentic’ experience on vacation so they visit remote villages and hire locals (who are usually well versed in entertaining rich tourists) to give them ‘authentic’ tours and taste the local booze. I doubt this is what Twain was talking about though.

Very interesting! What about others sensations like falling or feeling a surface?