Throw Me a Bone -- The World is Falling Apart
The world is falling apart, and it's nothing new, but it is desperately dire--and I am struggling to cope. Anyone else? If you read what's below, where do you fall? How do you make your life a little bit more worth living?
Throw me a bone here, if you're willing--I likely won't respond to comments, but I love to read them, and for the sake of my sanity I need a little bit of human interaction.
The World is Falling Apart - A non-spell-checked rant:
The more I think about it... the more I learn about AI, the planetary polycrisis, the international rise in techno-fascism, community networks drying up, scaling illiteracy, the global pandemic in mental health... the more the global illusion of systematic function breaks, the more outrage is fanned, the more death and destruction is wrought in a world we are suffocating... the more I find myself seeking ways to insulate my life against the backdrop of literal horrors befalling the world. I want to be ignorant and blissful. I need it. But to get there I would have to deconstruct every facet of myself and the life I have lived so far.
I care so deeply, but am so exhausted, and feel so limited in my capacity to bring about change. It seems like every old fuck around me is perfectly content ignoring the issues of the world and placating their way to an easy death, before everything becomes absolutely unavoidable. I feel crazy raising concerns about AI at my job, speaking up about genocide, challenging local leaders fucking stupid decisions on environmental policy--when all everyone around me is trying to do is pacify a necrosing system and avoid "rocking the boat," to protect their own self-interests, their paycheck, or their social capital. I've been let go before for being "difficult," and am finding the same pitfalls in my current job as all the others--apathetic empathy--care for people that only goes skin deep. The scariest part is that I have sensed a slow degradation of my moral commitments as time has gone on--I feel like I may slowly become like them, and lose my own plot. In so many ways, I am just like them, just like everyone; I need money to live, I need a job for money, I need to "keep the peace" to keep my job, and thus I need to suppress what I feel is my ethical obligation to speak up.
My mental health is rapidly crumbling--in large part due to this internal crisis. Anxiety and depression drive me 24/7. Those I love are struggling and far away. Things are only seeming to get worse and worse and I feel incapable of making a difference, enjoying what little is left of the current state of the world, or committing myself to my indecision. I am living in a constant state of strain between what I feel I should do, what I must do to live, and what I want to do--and there is no clear path forward. The clock ticks, and every day my worst fears are repeatedly realized.
Amid all the shit, I am trying to carve out some stability in my day to day--but I can't stick to a routine for the life of me. I've planed and curated all the things I want to do, and when it comes time to do them, I am motionless, completely unmotivated, and drained of energy. I am lucky to brush my teeth, much less eat breakfast. Ahhh it's all so depressing, and yet I hold to the hope, I guess, that something has to get better. Right? Anything... So if you've made it this far, what are those things that make it better for you? How do you "cope," if you care enough to care?
