There’s so much doom on social media right now. The environment is collapsing. The economy will crash. Civil rights are ending. Democracy is dead.

What keeps you going? Why do you still get up and go do what needs to be done when the world seems to be ending around us?

  • beliquititious
    2·
    1 month ago

    Hunter S. Thompson carried a revolver on him for most of his adult life for that exact reason.

    … He told me 25 years ago that he would feel real trapped if he didn’t know that he could commit suicide at any moment. I don’t know if that is brave or stupid or what, but it was inevitable. I think that the truth of what rings through all his writing is that he meant what he said. If that is entertainment to you, well, that’s OK. If you think that it enlightened you, well, that’s even better. If you wonder if he’s gone to Heaven or Hell, rest assured he will check out them both, find out which one Richard Milhous Nixon went to—and go there. He could never stand being bored. But there must be Football too—and Peacocks …

    — Some friend of Thompson’s after his death whose name I forget and am too lazy to look up (I have the quote unattributed in my notes on Thompson). But it’s quoted on Thompson’s Wikipedia if you’re not as lazy, lol.

      • beliquititious
        2·
        1 month ago

        Are you familiar with Project Semicolon? It’s an anti-suicide thing and they use the semicolon because it is unnecessary and using it is a choice by the author that there sentence could end, but they have chosen to continue. Your top level comment has very similar vibes to some of the things that the group advocates.

        The founder did eventually decide to end their story and they kind of faded out, but the message is a good one.

        I agree with you about the power accepting your own mortality grants. All human stories end in death, pretending there is any other option is delusional.