We got that one in Germany as well

I just realized I didn’t respond to your hearing issues: I generally don’t think that these would be a problem for learning martial arts. Of course it depends on your teachers teaching style, but generally they show you what to do and that is the most important part. They might have a metaphor or say for how long the next training sections go, but if you can read lips, you should be fine. The essential stuff you can only learn by watching and doing it yourself.

At first it’s hard to follow what’s being demonstrated, but you will get better at that fast. The beginning is always hard and you will feel like you’re slow and clumsy and stupid, because everybody else doesn’t seem to have trouble. That is completely normal and everybody there knows it, so don’t worry! As soon as you’ve had more practical experience your mirror-neurons will help you translate what you see into what you need to make your body do.

Also if you let your teachers and training partners know you’re hard of hearing, I’m sure they will be happy to accommodate. Everybody is there to improve and help others to improve as well. If they aren’t, that’s a huge red flag. Go find a better gym.

I trained Aikido for 10+ years, but that’s now also 10+ years ago. Aikido used to be pretty well regarded and was hyped for some years thanks to being featured in martial arts movies and Steven Seagal in particular. Unfortunately, with MMA fights becoming popular, people realized that a lot of “traditional” martial arts where more art than actual fighting. Over time Aikido became a laughing stock among martial arts enthusiasts. This process was again helped by Steven Seagal, who -as the defacto face of Aikido to the rest of the world outside japan- just got more and more ridiculous and heinous in his statements and actions.

This is all very unfortunate, because Aikido is a really fascinating and cool looking martial art. To this day a lot of the throws in action movies (for example in the John Wick franchise) are actual Aikido techniques. (Some traditional Ju-Juitsu practitioners might argue that it’s actually JJ, because Aikido has adopted a lot of techniques from JJ and Judo, but I would disagree, looking at the way they are applied. In the end that’s just a nerd argument either way.)

Aikido was developed by Morihei Ueshiba, a man with a fascinating history! It grew with his physical, spiritual and philosophical development from a straight forward, practical combat system (at the time called Aiki-Jutsu) into a non-violent, spiritual martial art (then called Aikido). One of the reasons there are very different kinds of Aikido practiced today, distinct in how violent and spiritual they are, is that their masters studied at different times under Ueshiba, who continually became softer and more spiritual with his age. However, although developed decidedly after the time of the Samurai in Japan a lot of the techniques still focus on disarming people carrying swords or reversely focus on attackers trying to prevent you from drawing your sword. This means most of the attacks trained in Aikido are people grabbing your wrist and then not letting go, which looks weird if there is no sword. This also limits the practicality. Towards the end of Ueshiba’s life his focus was not to teach a system to defend yourself anymore. His goal was to unite the world spiritually through Aikido, literally. He sent his top students out into the world often in countries, which languages they don’t even speak, to teach and spread Aikido. Not to gain money or fame, but genuinely to make the world a better place by helping people to spiritually grow through the practice of Aikido.

What and how Aikido is practiced varies depending on the style and your teacher. It goes the extreme from what is called practical Aikido, which is still dedicated to self-defense, to styles that are practiced solo in the form of Katas, resembling what you might see from Tai-Chi or Qui-Gong practitioners in the park. Generally, it is practiced in pairs with a so-called “cooperating” opponent (as opposed to an “resisting” opponent as would be usual for Ju-Juitsu). Actually, in Aikido we don’t speak of an opponent. There is only a “giving”/“throwing” and a “receiving”/“getting thrown” partner, because Aikido is supposed to be peaceful. I’ll still call it opponent or attacker here, though.

The central idea of Aikido is to embrace and merge the attackers energy with yours and then redirecting it without harming anyone, breaking only the attackers balance and/or throwing them. This is of course a very high-level goal. Basically you’re trying to skip all the nitty-gritty, violent, messy fighting (that Ueshiba did learn and teach extensively back in the day) and concentrate on the end goal of non-violently dissolving confrontations. Assuming that with enough training this goal can be reached, it means you will not be able to use most of what you practice in a real-life fight until you pretty much have “mastered Aikido”. Then you will, supposedly, be at such a level that you can defend any attack peacefully. Most Aikido practitioners are wise enough not to test this out, mostly because they prefer peace and harmony and aren’t training to prove anything. Most Aikidokas I know are training to better themselves, but there will always be exceptions. The teachers I’ve trained under did not make Aikido out to be about self-defense at all. When questioned by new students they usually say, that it might help you a little, but this is not what we train here.

Practicing Aikido will help you get in better shape, improve your health and especially your balance. Aikido practice will teach you how to properly roll and fall, which -at least where I live- will come in handy much more often than fighting skills. It is also a lot of fun to practice and it looks cool. Most schools will also train with wood swords (Aiki-ken) and short staffs (Aiki-bo). This all will be especially cool, if you’re into Japan, because Aikido is very much a traditional Japanese martial art, even though it is rather young, so we’re basically cosplaying as Samurai while training.

The best advice I can give you for selecting a martial art and gym is this:

• It is almost more important who you train with and under than what you are training. Try out every gym and see if you like the people and vibe there.
• Pick something that’s fun. Otherwise you will have trouble going regularly and making progress. If you don’t do it for fun, you will most likely quit the first time you encounter resistance or stop making fast progress
• Pick a gym that’s easy to get to, because having to travel a long time will make it harder to stick with it
• Prepare your training bag and put it besides your door so you just have to pick it up and go. This will make it much easier to go, when your motivation is low

Threads (1984) by Mick Jackson

Not sure who recommended it to me, but IMDB says its about “[t]he effects of a nuclear holocaust on the working class city of Sheffield, England and the eventual long-term effects of nuclear war on civilization.” Didn’t have a lot of motivation to seek it out, but it has great ratings. Top review says “Very few films have the ability to suck the life out of a viewer and leave them feeling drained and shaken in quite the same way that this does.” Yeah, so I’m not sure if I will ever be in the mood for that to be honest.

Second monitor and huge mousepad

There is already a bit of good advice what to do, here is what not to do: You already wrote that you don’t think you have what it takes for it, but I want to stress: Don’t try to make money as an online creator, on Etsy or similar. Basically everything popular with a low entry threshold is overcrowded and will only pay out if you put in massive amounts of time and effort AND are very lucky. GoFundMe is similar, it’s probably not worth the effort if you don’t already have a big reach or good hook.

You could try OnlyFans with a clever approach. Don’t go for the obvious. Think feet or worn underwear. Alternatively you can go donate blood and plasma in some places for money. You can sell your hair if you keep it in good condition. In general I’d say get scrappy: Food stamps, discounts, free wifi only, decrease your spending wherever you can. And keep looking for better jobs. There is always a better job somewhere.

When you’re living in a corporate hellscape you might as well be a survivalist. See how far you can take it. If you are dependent on your car for you job, maybe you need to move into your car and get rid of your apartment. Get a gym membership instead for showers. Research living on the street, frugality. There is a lot of valuable information online. You are not the only one going through this.

As for the mental part: Pretend you’re Mad Max. If your survival depends on it, you’re not far off. There is no shame to struggle in the this system. Concentrate on your survival. If you’re at the bottom, you can only go up.