Lying's Selfish Joys

The Context

Hi there, I'm Lying!

I'm a multiply-disabled trans person currently living in the UK. I have a HNC in Digital Forensics, a BSc in Computing, and ASD (originally diagnosed as Asperger's Syndrome) and fibromyalgia.

Owing in large part to my disabilities, I've spent my entire adult life living below the poverty line. I'm fortunate I can say I've dodged both homelessness and starvation in all that time, albeit occasionally by some very thin margins. I've lived in apartments that leaked raw sewage into my bedroom carpet at least once per year, I've lived without Internet for my job for half a year, I spent my entire last year of university unsure if I'd be allowed to graduate because the intranet literally ate my coursework, I've spent a decade looking for more work and only ever gotten a single (fruitless) interview, I've been on a waiting list for medical treatment 15 times longer than is legally permitted, and I've survived my entire household being laid low with flu so severe it nearly put me in the hospital.

In spite of those and other dramatic occasions, my life is very stable. Almost comfortable even, if not exceedingly modest. I live in a fairly nice and quiet area, with a wonderful partner of 10 years, I can more or less afford groceries every week, I have power, light, water, and Internet. And I've got friends and family, both worldwide and minutes away, who care deeply about me. I even left university with two different certifications! In 34 years I've achieved quite a lot in spite of my shortcomings.

What I haven't been able to achieve is almost any of the items on my proverbial bucket list. It's not that I'm in any real rush, my health isn't in danger of collapsing, and I'm no more drenched in debt than any other bachelor-degree-holder, but every thing I hope to ultimately achieve requires more money than I am likely to ever hold at any one time.

Every month I'm living meagre paycheque to benefit pay-out to next meagre paycheque, and I already operate a crowdfunding campaign just to support the medical costs my GPs won't. My salary is roughly in the region of £4000 per annum, roughly 1/6th of minimum wage, and that's on the high side of what I've ever been able to achieve.

There's simply no room for savings gradually-accrued for a pension, let alone luxuries, and I have long since exhausted all options for changing these circumstances. I may not be worthless by any humane metric, but I am functionally unemployable, essentially housebound, and my economic situation rests heavily on a government that treats people like me at best with suspicion and at worst with contempt.

The Objective

With the situation for folks like me quickly worsening worldwide on multiple fronts, I've made the decision in 2025 to pursue some of my long-term goals by whatever means available. I want to do what I can to achieve these selfish joys before politics, health, or economics (if not all of the above) take the chances away from me forever. I have a valid passport, I've done all the necessary research, I have clear plans of action, the only obstacle to any of them is money. So that's where this campaign comes in.

Some of these selfish joys have fairly considerable price-tags, so this campaign will be operating in a "redundant tier" or "thermometer" approach. That is to say, if we hit the amount for one item, further donations will go towards the next. And if we fail to reach the value of an item before the year or any associated deadline is out, the funds will be placed towards the next item.

If insufficient funds are attained for anything on the list, or we run out of items on it by December 31st 2025, they'll be put towards my medication, as per my existing GoFundMe campaign for them. The list has been organised to give the most-costly items a reasonable chance of being accomplished, without necessitating an increasingly-large hike in goal. It's not an exact highest-first order but, on average, each successive goal cost is lower than the preceding one.

The Bucket List

Specific to travel items, potential tourism, food, and miscellaneous costs are not included in the listed cost. These figures are purely representative of a reasonable estimate for round-trip travel and hotel costs. This means the actual cost value may also vary over the course of the year.

Buy a wheelchair - £250 - Goal 3%

Whilst this item is listed earlier than many more-expensive items, it is a vital enabling tool both for many of those same items and for simply being able to leave my house.

As it currently sits, I cannot walk for more than around 10 minutes (roughly 1 mile) without severe pain. As there are few attractions or even meaningful stores within that range of my home, I am functionally housebound. Therefore, a wheelchair, whilst not necessary for my day-to-day home life, would enable me to engage with the world again.

This cost is for a manual lightweight wheelchair to own, not rent.

Get my ears pointed in Poland - £2800 - Goal 45% - Deadline June 14

My immediate family all have piercings and/or tattoos, leaving me the lone outlier, and whilst I've had ideas for tattoos and other modifications over the years nothing has really stuck with me. This was until I discovered a relatively uncommon body mod called "ear pointing", which is a minor surgical operation that gives the ears more of an elf or fairy-like pointed tip. This is outside of the body modding mainstream, so it will cost roughly £2600 just to make the appointment, plus another roughly £200 to actually travel to the clinic in Poland to attend it.

For any concerns, I've thoroughly done my research on this subject over the years. It is completely safe, the technicians involved have over a decade of experience, with an extensive record of positive outcomes, are extremely thorough and transparent about necessary safety and after-care, extremely well-regarded in their field, and there are no legal concerns to be had.

Visit Belfast - £500 - Goal 52%

My grandmother was born in Belfast before emigrating to England in the middle of the last century. To date, I have never set foot in any portion of Ireland (Republic nor Northern) and have had no contact with my Irish heritage. This has been something I've considered a personal failing on my part, as it represents a significant chunk of my family's story that I have until recently held no knowledge of nor engagement with. I've recently been trying to rectify this shortcoming, by studying what I can of Irish mythology and culture, but actually seeing where many of my ancestors called home is beyond my economics.

Belfast in particular has a wealth of history ranging from the construction of the Titanic (which my great-grandfather saw depart for Liverpool as a boy) to being a hotbed of violence during The Troubles, to name but two. In trying to gain a greater appreciation for the totality of my heritage, Belfast is an obvious focal point to visit.

Buy a Bulbasaur plush toy from the Tokyo Pokemon Centre - £1150 - Goal 69%

It's no secret that I am a big fan of anime and Japanese culture, but in specific I am very strongly associated with the Bulbasaur Pokemon, which was my starter of choice when I played the original Pokemon Blue in 1996. Whilst I already have several Bulbasaur toys, and others can be purchased online from the Pokemon Centre, visiting Japan and making something of a pilgrimage to the brick-and-mortar store to purchase one in-person with my own hands would be a wonderful culmination of my decades of enjoyment of this strange cabbage frog.

Of course, such a trip would scarcely be sensible to end with just that one stop. There are any number of tourist destinations across Tokyo and the greater Japan, including the Studio Ghibli museum, Zao Fox Village, and the "legendary otaku holy land" of Akihabara. Precisely how many other spots would be visited is dependent on total funding.

Get hand & forearm tattoos - £750 - Goal 80%

Tattoo costs vary considerably by artist, scale, and complexity so this is a very rough estimate. The artwork in specific would be plant vines wrapping around my fingers and forearms, potentially in blue or gold to resemble white porcelain decoration. I've been popularly compared to fairies and the fae for some 15 years, so this would dovetail together with the ear-pointing to really cement the much-loved aesthetic.

Due to the multiple variables involved in estimating cost for this item, further refinement will be pursued as funding nears its initial estimate, potentially causing it to rise or fall as a result.

See the Northern Lights in Iceland - £1000 - Goal 95% - November 1

Seeing the Northern Lights is a popular entry in bucket lists the world over, and as an England native celestial events of all kinds are historically extremely difficult to observe owing to the perennial cloud cover and frequent urban light pollution. Consequently, foreign travel is the only means of remotely guaranteeing their observation.

The deadline for this travel item is roughly half-way through the typical period in which the Lights are observable in Iceland, which typically extends from September to March.

Learn Japanese and/or Gaelic - £200 - Goal 98%

As previous entries in this list can attest, there are two cultures of which I am quite fond: Japan and Ireland. Both feature their own language distinct from my native English, and particular to Irish (rather, Gaeilge) has seen generational efforts to suppress and eradicate its usage with less than 44,000 first-language speakers today in my grandmother's Northern Ireland.

One may reasonably question this item being listed so much later than visiting either nation, where speaking the local language may be of considerable value. It's not an unfair criticism of my ordering scheme, which prioritises more-costly items first to give them the greatest chance of being funded at all. More-over, limiting my travel options based on foreign language comprehension would in a best-case scenario push back travelling by months, potentially years. So it is listed later on the list, appropriate to its cost.

This cost represents the value of a Lifetime subscription to Rosetta Stone, subject to potential change due to shifting discounts, and would give me ample time to get to grips with both languages and potentially several others as well.

Get my ears pierced - £100 - Goal 100%

In the course of my transition a recurring mote of joy has been jewellery and accessorising as a form of individual expression. As one might expect I do not own much of any jewellery and cannot readily afford to expand my assortment very often. This item includes the reasonable-estimate cost of at least one pair of earrings in addition to the actual piercing.

Final Word

Hopefully I have made some compelling statement to supporting my efforts at personal life enrichment in what is likely to be a year of infamy. I am a creature of habit and, lacking significant opportunity to alter course, will likely live out the rest of my days achieving none of these items. Your donations therefore would quite meaningfully change my life, some in small ways, some in large, for the better.

If these joys are insufficient to encourage your financial support, a more immediate and material concern is the continuing cost of my medication. The GoFundMe campaign for that can be found here , should you find that a more palatable donation target.