I remember a time where we were hoping that it didn’t snow until after Halloween.
Now, we’re lucky to get snow in January in my area.
A white Christmas is basically a pipe dream.
We stopped doing anything for Christmas because we can’t afford to be merry and give gifts. We must work and CONSUME
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While on one hand I completely agree. On the other hand most generations in human history saw difficult times. One thing we have now is easy access to extra layers of constant despair by always being able to see any bad thing that is happening every minute of every day, on the news, on social media, from our politicians, etc. Then it even creeps into discussions with friends. The general dispare has crept into the discussion and taken over. But at the end of the day, most people have food, shelter, water, family, friends, and some level of healthcare (all be it problematic in the US).
For those of us lucky enough to not be destitute, or a current or future target of a repressive regime, it is important to remember to take some time to actually enjoy life instead of always feeling helpless about a profoundly imperfect world. Depression caused by the status of the world can also be avoided by taking action. Those that help, rarely let the status of the world get them down. Because, they know they did their part to move it in the right direction.
I will grant that social media has given us access to all of the misery we want all of the time, and that those algorithms also prioritize content that makes us angry.
However, it would be toxic positivity to say that things are actually fine or even pretty good.
Things are objectively getting worse. Income inequality is somewhere between near gilded age levels and worse. The planet is dying in front of our eyes. Fascists are taking power in many governments.
Things are actually pretty bleak. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope. But burying your head in the sand and pretending things are fine … well, I can understand that impulse. And I can understand that for some, it’s a coping mechanism. And for sure, do what you gotta to get by and all. But it’s not helpful in the broader sense.
I don’t disagree with a single word you said. But having perspective and leaving time to be human is not burying your head in the sand.
The last things I tried to say was that taking action is one thing you can do to mitigate your sense of helplessness. People who help others or try to make the world a better place often end up in a better mental space. It has the added benefit of working against all of the bad shit that is happening. Pick something, anything you care about, and try to make a difference. Even if you only make a tiny difference, if a thousand other people go out there and make the same tiny difference, suddenly you’ve moved the needle. In my experience, despair is nearly always coupled with paralyzed inaction.
I would agree, and my advice is getting active locally. Getting involved in your community is great for many reasons.
Amazingly, youthful angst and depression have been steadily increasing for several decades, with no puzzlingly large blip in recent years. You can jump to a conclusion that the problem is the one thing that personally bothers you the most, but maybe it’s a spectrum - for example, a lot of psychologists have been blaming teenage depression on too much screen time and not enough in-person social contact.
blaming teenage depression on too much screen time and not enough in-person social contact
That might be a part, but I’d ask you this: When is the last time that mankind truly had hope for the future? This isn’t just about individual people - it’s the entire media landscape.
I wouldn’t know about what mankind thinks, just my own thoughts. I had high hopes for the future this year, until 10 million people who voted for Biden in 2020 decided not to show the fuck up this time.
There were always work arounds which markedly started getting erased by ~2015.
DIY. Try to buy lumber, fabric, tools for either, anything that isn’t grossly out of lower SES price range. Wax. That one has gone up a horrendous amount. Even canning and used gardening supply. Anything DIY that would otherwise put you a bit ahead. Even disposable flower pots used on Walmart purchased plants have a resale $ value (assumed anyway) now.
Internet. Oh. People have stopped buying cable. Whelp, time to increase the monthly internet fee to cable bill prices. Started at $10/mo in 2010, now I’m paying $100/mo.
Bad players. Can’t get a general handyman for the house anymore, because high odds, without licensing and bonding, he’s going to hurt your house or maybe just abscond with the first half of the money halfway through. And thus houses are shittier (for the same sales price) because they don’t get fixed because people can’t afford the $1k at minimum per day of the license contractor. For further house enshittification on new houses go look up the shrinking garage size thing, it all ties together. Again, though, for a higher, not lower price. Don’t even get me started on lack of basements.
Goodwill and Habitat for Humanity Restore are now grossly expensive. No longer can you buy a replacement door for $30 at ReStore, which you could do in 2020. Whether you’re a reseller or not, the explosion in resellers (vs just a couple here and there, going unnoticed) absolutely has impacted used prices such that Goodwill even tells their people their goal is to be the final reseller and to price accordingly. ReStore even has a preferred buyers card, now.
With the exception of well marketed Etsy, you can’t even sell DIY because no one wants to pay for it. Why? (Cue Urkel voice) “I could do thaaaat.” Even when they don’t, can’t, or they’re unable or unwilling to do the buyin. Enshittification Walmart vs a hand crafted solid wood table, for some reason, the latter is valued as less, now.
Non torrent downloads online. Remember mega upload and all the rest? Free books galore, or whatever your thing was, depending, without the lens of torrenting on it. Gone.
Free music? Well that’s come back as cheap in the form of estate/second hand CDs and LPs, just burn your own digital from there, but now those prices have also skyrocketed as high as $5 minimum per LP. :(. So not cheap any longer.
Things just don’t last. I had a window AC unit from the 80s that came with an old house I bought. That thing worked right up until 2019. New window unit? 3yrs.
As soon as a way to save is found it’s enshittified, or or demand goes too high, or it’s disappeared.
Not to throw shade but where is this magical time in history with no worries or existential threats?
This isn’t about a time with no worries in their respective present, this is about the future. A couple decades ago there still was genuine hope for the future, an almost certain expectation that the future will be better.
A look at science fiction will confirm that: You get none of the space utopias from the sixties that honestly believed in the goodness of people today. There is only bleak techno dystopia from the nineties onwards, where everybody fends for themselves and no hope for long lasting peace is in sight.
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If we all try reaaalllly hard, we might get there at some point in the future. Until then it’s a nice fantasy.
14,000,000,000 BCE
I don’t think there were many existential threats before MAD
Personal existence has always been threatened since we had the ability to understand mortality, the new stuff (MAD and climate change) are pretty unique in that they threaten civilisation as a whole, and that’s pretty new
ITT: superfund positivity.
I’d like to see an actual survey that asks young people with anxiety and depression what is bothering them rather than making, presumably, assumptive generalizations.
