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?
Almost none of the crap going on will directly affect your life. Just live, enjoy, don’t read the news. You’ll be fine
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.
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 🤷♂️
That’s the most healthy way to have a positive impact on the world, imo. Thats what the human mind is best designed for.
Look, If I’m going down, I’m going down kicking and screaming.
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The alternative seems really boring.
Basically it’s self fulfilling if say that. You can believe all that i do too but I don’t say it becomes a forgone conclusion as that will make it happen for sure. My thoughts on it are. if it’s going to happen im gone to make it as hard as I can for the people that are making it happen and the closer we get to it happening the more radical my actions will become. I will help my community where I can and do my best to make the people responsible pay for their actions. I would read about community network building.
Also there is a YouTube channel Beau of the fifth column that has a lot of great advice. I know the name makes it sound like a crazy person but it’s not. They put the news into perspective and talk about ways to help your community. When the government and other social structures are gone.
Also if you want to talk I would be happy to be your penpal.
Thank you!
Antidepressants
Running on hope isn’t sustainable in this world, you gotta run on spite!
I think you just helped me realize what’s keeping me going…
Learning to harness that anxiety helps, too. It’s my fuel and my brakes at the same time.
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.
My dogs were 16 and 7 when they passed last year. 😞
I’m so sorry for your loss. It’s wonderful that you had one for so long, though.
Thanks, it was a rough year. Cancer is a real bummer.
Planning 🧠
Nice. Mines about 3. Would you wait until 5 for a new one?
Personally, I would say 3-4 is a good gap. That is what we have done with our last 3 pups, I wouldn’t want them to be much farther apart as I feel like they wouldn’t play or bond quite as well when the older one is more set in their ways and has less energy for puppy shenanigans
Yeah, I got a puppy when my older dog was five. But the puppy died of cancer right when she turned two. So I just got another puppy right before my older dog turned seven. She definitely had more patience for the last puppy, but they are starting to bond and play a bunch. It’s nice to see. The older dog seemed really off and saddened by the loss of the last puppy. Nice for her to have a friend again.
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.
Ours are 11, 7, and 3.
Spite.
At first I thought it was the lemon-lime goodness of Sprite that gave you hope, but I read it wrong.
Not much but snark
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.
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.
