Focus on shit an actual socialist government could achieve in our lifetimes, like public housing, more vacation time, free healthcare?

People are doing that, but it would make a boring meme.

I'm coming into my 30s now sort of going the opposite direction you are. From my perspective I'm realizing that I missed out on creative expression until now because I subconsciously realized it wasn't a "practical option" that I couldn't afford, so I'm waking up to the fact that I've lived my life up to this point as a STEM bro type missing out on a huge spectrum of experiences, and it makes me feel robbed.

I want to live in a fucking treehouse for a month, with a rope ladder, and a Zipline.

Yes. When I've read excerpts about life in the Soviet Union from workers perspectives, their lives are quite similar to ours with differences being that they didn't have the same economic worries we do in addition to having plenty of time to take off work with the bonus of having access to state-subsidized vacation facilities across many locations.

I'm not saying we're just going to abolish work, but we absolutely could be working far less if we structured our society differently. We've had an explosion of automation since the industrial revolution, yet people still work just as much as they ever did. A lot of the jobs we have are just make work jobs. There's a whole book on the subject even.

Also, the way we do things under capitalism is dreadfully inefficient. Nearly half of the food produced is just thrown out, lots of new goods are sent directly to landfills to keep pries up, there's shit like planned obsolescence. All to keep the consumerist society going so that a handful of oligarchs can keep raking it in. Not only does this create shitty living conditions for the majority, it's also fundamentally unsustainable and what's driving the current climate crisis.

The focus of a socialist government should be to ensure that the purpose of work is to produce things that we need collectively such as infrastructure, food, housing, healthcare, and so on. Producing things should be seen as a cost to society, and we should focus on making things that last and can be repaired. Consumerism needs to be abolished.

No need to go all the way to beatnik wandering artist. I feel like the creative urge can strike any person at any time, and the problem with this is that as things are currently organized, that spark will be smothered. Part of demonstrating to people why they should want things to change is appealing to those who have felt that happen to them. I don't think a person ever forgets the pain of it, and it can happen to anyone.

yes. having the same thoughts now

thats why UBI would be a better thing in my opinion. you get enough money to survive normally as a prerequisite but then you can also go to work if you want to save up for more luxury stuff, traveling or whatever you want to do

some people dont realize that a lot of us would still work, just with way less stress and as a bonus, not a basic necessity

Yup, and, aside from the fact that humans were never made to do or be anything by anyone, but just evolved by chance, I still can't recall a moment in our shared collective history when most people alive were bohemian artists, traveling all the time and having lots of creative hobbies and aspirations.

Afaik we went from barely surviving on what we could hunt and gather to barely surviving in the farms of the nobles, to barely surviving in the factories of the masters, to at least having some level of food security (at least in the developed world). I don't remember a time when we were better off than now, with more free time and more security.

Not even in Stalin's Russia or Castro's Cuba were most people living the idyllic bohemian life everyone here seems to be clamoring for.