Thank you for this! I sometimes feel like I'm fine (especially when I'm walking the dog, or running, or cleaning the house), but often it feels like I'm one step away from losing it completely sometimes. Moving out of the city and into a bigger space in the 'burbs helped some. Starting back volunteering at an animal shelter and getting involved with that helps (Except when I see an adoptee bounce back because an adopter decided they couldn't be bothered).
But every day I go to work cheek to cheek with a vertical monopoly that is eating an industry I used to intensely love and can now barely stand, watching mentors fade, age, and die (sometimes from covid), colleague get laid off because the co. missed it's numbers by half a percent, and acknowledge that my new overlords could give a g*d damn shit about me and would much prefer that I go out of business because...well...they want everything.
In the end, I think the thing that has been most rage inducing for me, anyway, is watching some people (like a relative) act like all of this is no big deal and go on with their petty little lives like nothing has ever happened, none of this will ever touch them and there's no consequences, ever.
I was having a similar discussion with some folks the other day. I'm generally very sanguine about the world and all its woes, following more of a "run with the wagon" kind of approach -- somewhat fatalistic, I guess -- that we don't control very much, we can't change very much, so there's no benefit to worrying over a lot of stuff, and we can all keep making the small decisions in life and just kind of hope they all add up to something.
In addition, since my early 20s, I've suffered from IBS that is primarily aggravated by... stress! So I've had to learn to just... not get stressed... if possible.
But even with that attitude and nearly four decades of learning to control and subdue stress, I must admit that I'm getting pretty frayed at this point. The world just seems to be going to hell in a handbasket at this point and I can't help but get angry and frustrated at the people who not only caused a lot of it but now seem to be actively blocking any efforts to improve matters. I've really lost any last speck of faith in my fellow human beings at this point... and, sadly, that's got to be "okay"...
It’s definitely…yeah, it’s something. So weird to just be plugging along trying to ward things off, and even the places that are a release (so happy live music is back, for example) are few and far between. I just try to ride the waves. Like…I know I’m fortunate but that does not mean I’m okay. Just doing my best the same as everyone else I know, but no shame in admitting the weight of everything out there. Idk…it’s all…a lot, always
This pain is the price of caring, and the only things I've found to help have been working with others to find tiny slices of suffering and chip away at it together. We're all just one person, but you'd be surprised how small of a group of regular people can make a big change.
im seeing so many comments on youtube these days, from kids in school.... never saw those like that before. they are so plaintive. they are stressed about school, worried, scared, 'trying their best' its heartbreaking. a lot of teenagers are -really- struggling right now. i cant imagine growing up in this hellscape with no future and surrounded by monsters.
personally, i find peace in the hope that humanity will hopefully go totally and completely extinct before we infest any other planets, i truly hope that, this thought gives me a lot of comfort, and its my best case scenario. humanity just isnt doing a good job. individuals are ok but as a species, we are heading into the 6th mass extinction and doing very little to stop it... we are in for some bad times coming up. i sincerely hope that humans go first and the earth recovers. that is my best case scenario and where i find comfort.
unfortunately, its highly unlikely that it wont be the poor and innocent suffering first and most, and that is very tragic and people are feeling it... things are a hot, hot mess. that is too real. i still hold out hope that something comes along that just neatly wipes us out with hopefully little suffering.. it just isnt really likely unfortunately. also, im 100% sure the right is doing a lot of this awful stuff purposefully: "A nation is not conquered Until the hearts of its women are on the ground."
Thank you, this made a few minutes more bearable, and that’s great because I’m up at too-early o’clock again and I need to string together a lot of hope scraps and I’m-not-alone glimpses if I’m going to make it through another day. As a person who until two years ago was a cheerful doer and goer, long-haul Covid fatigue (and the ptsd of nearly losing a friend, and the abortion laws, and the flood that wracked our small towns, and Afghanistan’s refugees, and Fucker Carlson, and and and) has me barely able to do or go at all. The hardest part is not being able to recognize my own internal identity…. I don’t know how to relate to myself. It’s like I’ve moved into an entirely new headspace and none of the furniture is remotely familiar here, or my taste. But this is where I live now, so I guess I’ll sit on this very uncomfortable modern sofa and try to enjoy a little tea in this too-small, too-delicate teacup, even though it’s cold and not a flavor I particularly like. Because here we are. Among my dearest friends, all bright lights just recently used-to-be energized community leaders, I now see exhaustion, despair, a new cancer diagnosis, loss of siblings and parents to addiction and Covid, ramped up alcoholism, fear, and debilitating depression.
Really grateful for this post/playlist. It's so important to voice that yes, we're allowed to be affected by the state of the world. That the news is real, and it does affect us personally. You've been very clear that rights are at stake and the human cost is being paid.
I feel like our instinct is to imitate tv and radio pundits. To see wins or losses in a partisan frame, with a checklist of "good" or "bad" things for a given side. And this creates people who can't really tell what's authentic when talking about politics. They can't really tell the difference between Mark Joseph Stern at Slate wondering what the hell might happen to his rights after a SCOTUS decision and Ben Shapiro yelling about how someone making $7.25 an hour doesn't even deserve that. I don't want to be mean to those people, but I wish they would grow up and learn to care about other people. Not every issue has to affect you personally and give you a nervous breakdown in order to be a matter of concern. And maybe it's not the worst thing, like you say, to feel bad when things are actually bad. To not feel anything, or like the GOP 2024 Presidential candidate, to actually feel good while fundraising via destroying what's left of democracy, is probably a sign of something worse.
Thank you for this! I sometimes feel like I'm fine (especially when I'm walking the dog, or running, or cleaning the house), but often it feels like I'm one step away from losing it completely sometimes. Moving out of the city and into a bigger space in the 'burbs helped some. Starting back volunteering at an animal shelter and getting involved with that helps (Except when I see an adoptee bounce back because an adopter decided they couldn't be bothered).
But every day I go to work cheek to cheek with a vertical monopoly that is eating an industry I used to intensely love and can now barely stand, watching mentors fade, age, and die (sometimes from covid), colleague get laid off because the co. missed it's numbers by half a percent, and acknowledge that my new overlords could give a g*d damn shit about me and would much prefer that I go out of business because...well...they want everything.
In the end, I think the thing that has been most rage inducing for me, anyway, is watching some people (like a relative) act like all of this is no big deal and go on with their petty little lives like nothing has ever happened, none of this will ever touch them and there's no consequences, ever.
Thank you for this.
I was having a similar discussion with some folks the other day. I'm generally very sanguine about the world and all its woes, following more of a "run with the wagon" kind of approach -- somewhat fatalistic, I guess -- that we don't control very much, we can't change very much, so there's no benefit to worrying over a lot of stuff, and we can all keep making the small decisions in life and just kind of hope they all add up to something.
In addition, since my early 20s, I've suffered from IBS that is primarily aggravated by... stress! So I've had to learn to just... not get stressed... if possible.
But even with that attitude and nearly four decades of learning to control and subdue stress, I must admit that I'm getting pretty frayed at this point. The world just seems to be going to hell in a handbasket at this point and I can't help but get angry and frustrated at the people who not only caused a lot of it but now seem to be actively blocking any efforts to improve matters. I've really lost any last speck of faith in my fellow human beings at this point... and, sadly, that's got to be "okay"...
It’s definitely…yeah, it’s something. So weird to just be plugging along trying to ward things off, and even the places that are a release (so happy live music is back, for example) are few and far between. I just try to ride the waves. Like…I know I’m fortunate but that does not mean I’m okay. Just doing my best the same as everyone else I know, but no shame in admitting the weight of everything out there. Idk…it’s all…a lot, always
This pain is the price of caring, and the only things I've found to help have been working with others to find tiny slices of suffering and chip away at it together. We're all just one person, but you'd be surprised how small of a group of regular people can make a big change.
im seeing so many comments on youtube these days, from kids in school.... never saw those like that before. they are so plaintive. they are stressed about school, worried, scared, 'trying their best' its heartbreaking. a lot of teenagers are -really- struggling right now. i cant imagine growing up in this hellscape with no future and surrounded by monsters.
personally, i find peace in the hope that humanity will hopefully go totally and completely extinct before we infest any other planets, i truly hope that, this thought gives me a lot of comfort, and its my best case scenario. humanity just isnt doing a good job. individuals are ok but as a species, we are heading into the 6th mass extinction and doing very little to stop it... we are in for some bad times coming up. i sincerely hope that humans go first and the earth recovers. that is my best case scenario and where i find comfort.
unfortunately, its highly unlikely that it wont be the poor and innocent suffering first and most, and that is very tragic and people are feeling it... things are a hot, hot mess. that is too real. i still hold out hope that something comes along that just neatly wipes us out with hopefully little suffering.. it just isnt really likely unfortunately. also, im 100% sure the right is doing a lot of this awful stuff purposefully: "A nation is not conquered Until the hearts of its women are on the ground."
Thank you, this made a few minutes more bearable, and that’s great because I’m up at too-early o’clock again and I need to string together a lot of hope scraps and I’m-not-alone glimpses if I’m going to make it through another day. As a person who until two years ago was a cheerful doer and goer, long-haul Covid fatigue (and the ptsd of nearly losing a friend, and the abortion laws, and the flood that wracked our small towns, and Afghanistan’s refugees, and Fucker Carlson, and and and) has me barely able to do or go at all. The hardest part is not being able to recognize my own internal identity…. I don’t know how to relate to myself. It’s like I’ve moved into an entirely new headspace and none of the furniture is remotely familiar here, or my taste. But this is where I live now, so I guess I’ll sit on this very uncomfortable modern sofa and try to enjoy a little tea in this too-small, too-delicate teacup, even though it’s cold and not a flavor I particularly like. Because here we are. Among my dearest friends, all bright lights just recently used-to-be energized community leaders, I now see exhaustion, despair, a new cancer diagnosis, loss of siblings and parents to addiction and Covid, ramped up alcoholism, fear, and debilitating depression.
"It's okay not to be okay"... lucky for me
Really grateful for this post/playlist. It's so important to voice that yes, we're allowed to be affected by the state of the world. That the news is real, and it does affect us personally. You've been very clear that rights are at stake and the human cost is being paid.
I mean, there are people who are news junkies for whom this might as well be a game. Kylie Brakeman's "just a couple of blue check liberals" sketch is my go-to on this: https://twitter.com/deadeyebrakeman/status/1320785467122438146
I feel like our instinct is to imitate tv and radio pundits. To see wins or losses in a partisan frame, with a checklist of "good" or "bad" things for a given side. And this creates people who can't really tell what's authentic when talking about politics. They can't really tell the difference between Mark Joseph Stern at Slate wondering what the hell might happen to his rights after a SCOTUS decision and Ben Shapiro yelling about how someone making $7.25 an hour doesn't even deserve that. I don't want to be mean to those people, but I wish they would grow up and learn to care about other people. Not every issue has to affect you personally and give you a nervous breakdown in order to be a matter of concern. And maybe it's not the worst thing, like you say, to feel bad when things are actually bad. To not feel anything, or like the GOP 2024 Presidential candidate, to actually feel good while fundraising via destroying what's left of democracy, is probably a sign of something worse.