My GenX existential horror was learning in my thirties that all the western American Exceptionalism ideology I was indoctrinated in as a kid was just a way of keeping us from getting proactive for sake of the future generations, and my parents and teachers and ministers knew this and actively lied to me anyway.
The century of find out with almost no active participation in the previous century of fuck around.
A lot of “climate collapse global late stage capitalism and food is more and more plastic” stick with very little “convenience products are kinda nifty” carrot
It’s kind of bittersweet being a very tail-end Gen X person. On the happy side, I got to do my childhood and teen years in the “fuck about” era, but on the unhappy side my entire adulthood has been in the “find out” era, and I get to remember what it was like briefly living in a world that wasn’t entirely going to shit.
I feel like I could still join in on all the fuck around going on, but the find out has simultaneously already started and I can’t deal with the cognitive incongruence. Most people seem to be just fine with that tho. Must be nice being able to just turn your brain off and keep fucking the planet like that.
To keep your sanity you just have to lower your expectations.
I, for example, am really stoked for the burrito I ordered. Fuck, it’s good to be alive.
I’m stoked about having learned how to repair PCs in my last 6 hour hyperfixation, and then actually fixing two PCs.
I really wish my generation was a bit more optimistic. Yeah shit sucks, don’t get me wrong. But have you guys seen all of history? This is par for the course. Yeah the challenges are different but every generation had their challenges. And yeah baby boomers definitely had it better than us, but that doesn’t mean there’s nothing but bad stuff to come. You have to take life with the good and the bad and make the most of it.
The bad is starting to look more and more like an impending global societal collapse with every passing day though
Yeah I don’t know about “par for the course”
What other generation had the threat of scientifically proven ecological collapse looming over them?
scientifically proven ecological collapse
This is a pretty specific thing, but the general “we’re all doomed” vibe is definitely not unique to today. Boomers and older had the threat of nuclear annihilation looming over them, and before that… well, disease and famine and death and destruction due to war have historically been the norm.
Imagine how you’d feel living in the Americas in the 16th or 17th centuries and either watching the destruction wrought by European settlers firsthand or, maybe worse, watching your peers die en masse of the diseases introduced by those settlers. Imagine living in Eurasia in the 13th century and watching the Mongol army sweep through.
None of this is to say that today’s challenges aren’t real and serious. Just that we’re not the first to face such challenges.
The Ukraine-Russia & Israel-Palestine wars, and the likelyhood of China going after Taiwan before 2027, and the Koreas continually being a powder keg influenced by all of this. Between all that and me being 23 years old I sincerely think I might witness World War 3, it’s terrifying, yet it feels inevitable with our era of false 1st world peace built on a house of cards.
That’s not even mentioning the Republican Project 2025, as a trans person I might have to fight for my life.
