A year ago I was unemployed and single. My answer then would have been considerably different than now. I’m much happier with my life but the world is now much worse off and I’m currently struggling to reconcile my radical progressive views with the desire for a comfortable life. I’m still strongly of the opinion that our society (in the US at least) is beyond repair, but I’m less eager to see the reset button pressed. I’m fortunate to be in a blue state (though like all blue states, it gets real red outside the city limits), so my plan at the moment is to pretend the federal government doesn’t exist.
Similar boat. I’m climbing out of a pit of 10 year of shit luck and painful life events. I’ve been getting glimpses of the good life and was starting to accept my progress and recognize how far things had come. My trajectory was success. Now I have 4+ years of bullshit to look forward to and even if the dems win the next time, they’ve shown they won’t, can’t, don’t know how to wield that power effectively.
My partner has an adult dependent who now lives with us and it is going to put a wrench into the wheels of our own plan to leave for overseas where we want to start a family somewhere where it is affordable and they are less likely to be victimized or murdered at school and will actually learn something. This would not be such a big deal as we make a good family, but staring down the barrel of this red white and blue idiocracy, the barriers to leaving feel like a sledgehammer to the face.
To your last point, I’m moderately happy with my state government though my municipality is Religious, MAGA, Jesusland, hell. I used to wish for revolution or huge social change as a kid, but as an adult I realize that we all need to change our own hearts and start treating each other with respect. Institutions can be changed, but it has to happen from the bottom up through individual actions (or intentional lack of action). Top down always results in tyranny. That’s why this education domino is going to hurt so bad. People won’t learn how to think anymore, just what to think, and they’ll be monitored closely from the day they are born to the day they die. Still holding out hope though.
as an adult I realize that we all need to change our own hearts and start treating each other with respect
As a kid I believed that cooperation and mutual respect would lead us down the path to a wonderful future. I believed very strongly in the power of love and good sense. I still think this is true but the world has proven to me, brutally and repeatedly, that we don’t live in an environment of cooperation and mutual respect.
As an adult, I’m done treating conservatives with respect. One-sided respect and attempts at compromise is what got us into this nightmare hellscape to begin with. Respect is earned, not given. And I refuse to respect those who will not reciprocate it.
“Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man. You take a step towards him, he takes a step back. Meet me in the middle, says the unjust man.”
I just have to continue reminding myself that people somehow continued to live happy, fulfilling lives during the fall of the Roman Empire.
