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?
I deleted all my social media the day after the election, except for my lemmy account. Mostly because I forgot about it. Now I just read a few news headlines and solve a crossword every day. And WHOA - talk about having bountiful free time now. It’s kinda scary.
Am I less stressed? Meh, maybe a bit. But I’ve decided I’m going to find beauty and amusement in the utter self destruction we are about to witness. I’m going to stand over here and watch the fire while I drink my beer in peace.
I think I may still be riding the hype of things like the JWST, and fusion energy breakthroughs. Our societies may be back sliding at the moment, but our species is still doing some amazing things.
What else are we supposed to do?
Edit: that’s a rhetorical question, don’t come at me enumerating the alternatives
The alternative is certain death. If I were satisfied with that outcome, I’d already be dead.
I beat the factorio DLC, right now that’s all I got and I’m clinging to that bad boy
Look, If I’m going down, I’m going down kicking and screaming.
Find a small corner of the world you can improve and focus on that. Can only effect what you can. Not worth worrying about the other stuff.
As hokey as it sounds 🤷♂️
Touching grass. It’s important to remember that the entire world isn’t online and the world isn’t as dire as all of us chronically online doomers would have you believe. Things are chaotic-shift-in-the-status-quo bad, not civilization-ending bad.
The wheel turns, right now it’s in a muddy rut and the people on the bottom (sexually active women, people of colors, and the queer community) are drowning, but all the little people on the outer edge are eventually in the dirt. Fuck the world, fuck the country, the people you have personal relationships with are the only thing that matters because all we have is each other.
Personally I have been trying to be more proactive, which has helped me have a sense of agency amidst the chaos. Everything I own fits in my car in case I need to leave quickly because of a climate disaster or the legalization of hunting trans people. I haven’t bought a new thing (used, diy, or do without only) since lockdown because it’s significantly cheaper and makes me feel like I’m doing my part to fight final form capitalism. I’ve also been exploring alternate ways to support myself and live that are more sustainable.
It’s easy to say that when you aren’t about to lose medication you rely on, when you aren’t wondering if you’re going to be denaturalized and thrown in a camp, when you aren’t left wondering if you are going to lose people you love and the community you’ve built around you, when you don’t live in fear of losing your job and in turn your health insurance.
Honey, I haven’t worked in two years because of mental illness and I haven’t had insurance in three. I’m trans and live in Texas as well so Trump’s election feels a lot like a death sentence and I’ve already lost most of my old friends and family to bigotry. Just since the election I have had four strangers clock me and yell slurs, one guy even followed me 40 miles and finally gave up when I stopped at the police station near where I am staying. I am so afraid that I get physically sick whenever I leave the house. If I didn’t have family who could take me in and support me while I try to put my life back together I would be homeless, or more likely dead.
You’re right, I don’t live in fear of losing those things because I have already lost them. From the other side of those fears, you can lose everything and life still goes on, I promise.
Jack Smith dropped the charges without prejudice so they can be re-filed the second he leaves office.
Dude won’t make it that far. Or much further than that.
My dogs. I stagger their ages so that I’ll always have at least one and thus would feel too guilty to ever kill myself.
Planning 🧠
Ours are 11, 7, and 3.
Nice. Mines about 3. Would you wait until 5 for a new one?
Depends on the breed / size of the dog. Large dogs have shorter lives. I like large dogs. About five years is a good age to get a puppy in that context. I wouldn’t wait more than seven years.
Donald Trump will die (don’t care if from natural causes or not) at some point in the near future. Just want to be alive to celebrate.
Reasons you can get banned permanently from reddit for $1000.
I want to watch him die. just to make sure the piece of shit is actually dead.
got my hopes up when covid got him. fat greasy mcdoublefuck still pulled through.
I thought I was devastated then.
Look, I am as heartbroken as anyone that the two crazies that tried, missed (or never got a shot off). But that’s something else. If you’re not trolling, you should probably talk to a mental health professional about those feelings.
Good thing this isn’t Reddit then
I keep hoping that everything is exaggerated and it won’t be that bad. That he’ll be out in 4 years and not become a dictator with no more term limits.
If it helps, humans are really really really really really bad at predicting the future. We don’t know what’s going to happen until it does and even then knowing how that changes what comes after is still unknowable.
For example many of the promises Agent Orange made on the campaign trail would have disastrous consequences for everyone, which might be enough to shift the balance back by the midterms.
My friends, family, drawing, having a nice home to live in, good food and fun stuff to do ❤️ I try and avoid negativity by searching for things I’m interested in to engage with, such as art, nature photography, cat photos, and videogames. Some websites let you tailor your feed to your liking!
I work in disability support. Some of the kids I am working with have gone over the last year from non speaking to using sign and are making real meaningful progress in their self care skills. They can keep going in the face of difficult times, so my problems don’t seem so hard.
Also, in Australia we have the NDIS, a system for funding disability supports in a socialised manner without restricting what options someone uses too much. While all governmental systems (or any systems with money) are susceptible to grift progress is being made on catching fraudsters and prosecuting them while also closing the loopholes they exploit. The NDIS will be around for a long time to come and will help Australians with disabilities determine their own futures and make them a reality. There are problems with it but honestly it has been a game changer and I think it is a model for the rest of the world to aspire to.
Over the past few weeks, I realized that I wasn’t reading the news to “stay informed,” I was reading it because I was bored. As a form of entertainment, it’s pretty awful. 99% of what I read will have no direct impact on me or my family, and just sitting there and worrying about it without doing anything to fix it serves nobody.
Also, I’ve learned to be skeptical of basically every headline good or bad. I saw a headline this week about how upset Trump supporters were with his cabinet picks. Comments in the thread were talking about leopards eating faces. The article was a collection of 8 tweets from supporters showing disapproval.
This news site was just preying on people’s hopes and making a story out of absolutely nothing.
So I started focusing on some personal hobbies and have tried to re-teach myself how to focus by reading some long form fiction.
This is so true. MY eyes are now a commodity and I’m going to choose who gets them more wisely.
