I’ve had it for a couple of months now. Sure, it sucks, and I can’t work currently, but I’d much rather have this than die though. This will pass (almost everyone gets better in a couple of years max), death is rather final. Also, don’t kid yourself about the people that had COVID but don’t experience long covid. Many of them have permanent changes to their body too, they just don’t know it.
Be warned though, some x265 stuff out there, particularly at 1080p and lower, is a reencode of a x264 source file. So lower filesize, but also slightly lower quality. Scene regulations say only higher resolutions should be x265.
This used to be the norm, not a weird thing that noone has thought of before. If you do this your kernel will be a lot smaller, boot faster, and be a bit more secure. Once you’re booted it won’t make any meaningful speed difference though.