The parts of life I’m not satisfied with are the facts that my country is rapidly sliding into becoming a fascist ethnostate, our tax code is fucked six ways to Sunday, corporations are unaccountable to the law, I can barely afford food anymore because of corporations being unaccountable to the law and our tax code being fucked, my society is being actively destroyed by religious fanatics and schools can no longer be trusted to educate anyone.
There’s a story Mr. Rogers used to tell, "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” That’s what you need to do, look for the helpers, which for adults and politics means look for the grass roots organizers. Go ask the people putting in the leg work how you can help. Yeah alone you are powerless but in a group you become powerful, find allies.
I will be geniune with you and put some thought into this reply even if you probably won’t agree with what I say anyway. I have no solutions for the flaws of our society and the world people have made. Societal inequality, corrupt politics, all controlling corporations. tThere aren’t any quick or easy solutions to those aspects of life, if any at all. People are flawed, self interested, sometime cruel and selfish I don’t have a solution to my countries problems, or your countries problems, or the worlds problems, or human nature problems that everything else ultimately stems from.
I decided that it wasn’t worth worry about all the things I have no power over, that obsessing over all the unfair injustices of life would ultimately lead me to becoming a neurotic pessimist. I hold no illusion that I hold any power as an individual over the flow of society, and that whatever happens, happens. Unless you are rich and powerful, there isn’t much you can do with the system as it is. You can be angry with that truth, rage against it, or accept it and move on. I chose the latter and started focusing on the things in my life I do have power over. My own happiness over my own living situation, My flaws as a human being, my negative and hateful interpretations of the world, my passions unfulfilled and frustrations built that lead to my unhappiness and disatisfaction with life. What I might be interested in doing with my life that may bring a sembelance of personal meaning/fufillment to fill that emptyness, what my personal vision of a happy life looks like. I can’t control the world or even begin to know how to, but I can control how I interpret my existence and what I choose to do with it.
How you experience and live has a lot to do with how you interpret yourself and your own life. Do you think you think you are a shakespearean character living out a tragedy full of pain and trauma and regret in an uncaring malevolent universe? That we live in the worst timeline possible and everything is beyond hope? That your country is the worst version of itself to possibly exist? That your living situation is hopeless with no way out no matter how hard you try? Then it is so, from your perspective.
Do you think that even though life, society, and everything inbetween is unfair, and there is so much suffering in the world, even so there is still some beauty and goodness to be found in people and every day life? That while our timeline is subpar and things could be better, that there is still some hope for people as a whole and that things can be better? That you have the means and power to work towards a better, happier future for your self? That reality while unfair and sometimes cruel ultimately it has your best interest in mind? Then it is so, from your perspective.
How we choose to interpret reality is more reflection of our individual psychology than reality itself. A smart person once said something along the lines of "the most important question a person can ask themselves is ‘is the universe malevolent or benevolent’ You have a choice in how you choose to see the world, you can either focus on the bad, rotten and unfair things on the outside that cannot be easily changed or you can focus on the bad, rotten, angry hateful things on the inside eating at your mind which can slowly be changed by contributing to the small acts of good that still happen everyday.
That’s a nice outlook you have, and I wish it could be more relatable. The things you’re “not worrying about because you can’t change them” are actively ruining that entire dealio though. You don’t need to be thinking about them all the time to do the bare minimum and simply acknowledge that they are current issues, and will remain to be issues until fixed. It also takes little to zero effort to be aware of the fact that “pulling yourself up” is not always viable, precisely because of these issues you’ve been “not thinking about”. The issues give zero fucks about if your or anyone else is thinking of them. They are still making simply surviving, its own problem.
Crying about it doesn’t help anyone, but to say these people just need to “dust themselves off” when you are actively ignoring the issues that are preventing them front being happy or comfortable (not rich, literally just surviving not at the edge), is extremely rich. All that says is you got your piece, and think that means everyone can get theirs. It disregards the possibility of different external and personal conditions. Either of which can, and are, a significant blockage, to that path of progress you refer to.
I actually really appreciate the thought and effort put into your reply here. I will admit freely that my original comment was coming from a place of frustration, no small amount of depression, and desperation. And I think you’re absolutely correct that for the average person it’s probably more important to worry about your own immediate health and surroundings. It’s healthier that way.
The part I disagree with, though, is the idea that just putting on your blinders and ignoring the things you can’t change is a fine way to live your life. We, as citizens, have a duty and a responsibility to keep our country in line. We, as human beings, have a duty and a responsibility to be good shepherds of our planet. We, as parents, have a duty and a responsibility to leave a better world behind for our children than the one we inherited. And I can’t, and won’t, just ignore all that. The universe is not malevolent but it also is not benevolent. It is vast and uncaring far beyond our ability to comprehend it as such, and it is up to us, the thinking, feeling creatures, to forge our future. If we do not act, there will be no action.
Our situation was caused by thinking, feeling human beings, and it will be solved by thinking, feeling human beings and no one else. Or else we will die, and find ourselves as an evolutionary dead-end that tried real hard but didn’t quite make it.
So my question then becomes, at the end of the day - if not you or I, then who? If we do not rage against the night, if we do not reach to the sky to pull ourselves out of the hole we’ve been dug into - then who is going to do it for us? Not God, that’s for sure. Not politicians, or soldiers, or celebrities. So who?
The parts of life I’m not satisfied with are the facts that my country is rapidly sliding into becoming a fascist ethnostate, our tax code is fucked six ways to Sunday, corporations are unaccountable to the law, I can barely afford food anymore because of corporations being unaccountable to the law and our tax code being fucked, my society is being actively destroyed by religious fanatics and schools can no longer be trusted to educate anyone.
So, yeah. Any ideas? I’m all ears.
Did you try “rolling up your sleeves”?
There’s a story Mr. Rogers used to tell, "When I was a boy and I would see scary things in the news, my mother would say to me, “Look for the helpers. You will always find people who are helping.” That’s what you need to do, look for the helpers, which for adults and politics means look for the grass roots organizers. Go ask the people putting in the leg work how you can help. Yeah alone you are powerless but in a group you become powerful, find allies.
deleted by creator
I will be geniune with you and put some thought into this reply even if you probably won’t agree with what I say anyway. I have no solutions for the flaws of our society and the world people have made. Societal inequality, corrupt politics, all controlling corporations. tThere aren’t any quick or easy solutions to those aspects of life, if any at all. People are flawed, self interested, sometime cruel and selfish I don’t have a solution to my countries problems, or your countries problems, or the worlds problems, or human nature problems that everything else ultimately stems from.
I decided that it wasn’t worth worry about all the things I have no power over, that obsessing over all the unfair injustices of life would ultimately lead me to becoming a neurotic pessimist. I hold no illusion that I hold any power as an individual over the flow of society, and that whatever happens, happens. Unless you are rich and powerful, there isn’t much you can do with the system as it is. You can be angry with that truth, rage against it, or accept it and move on. I chose the latter and started focusing on the things in my life I do have power over. My own happiness over my own living situation, My flaws as a human being, my negative and hateful interpretations of the world, my passions unfulfilled and frustrations built that lead to my unhappiness and disatisfaction with life. What I might be interested in doing with my life that may bring a sembelance of personal meaning/fufillment to fill that emptyness, what my personal vision of a happy life looks like. I can’t control the world or even begin to know how to, but I can control how I interpret my existence and what I choose to do with it.
How you experience and live has a lot to do with how you interpret yourself and your own life. Do you think you think you are a shakespearean character living out a tragedy full of pain and trauma and regret in an uncaring malevolent universe? That we live in the worst timeline possible and everything is beyond hope? That your country is the worst version of itself to possibly exist? That your living situation is hopeless with no way out no matter how hard you try? Then it is so, from your perspective.
Do you think that even though life, society, and everything inbetween is unfair, and there is so much suffering in the world, even so there is still some beauty and goodness to be found in people and every day life? That while our timeline is subpar and things could be better, that there is still some hope for people as a whole and that things can be better? That you have the means and power to work towards a better, happier future for your self? That reality while unfair and sometimes cruel ultimately it has your best interest in mind? Then it is so, from your perspective.
How we choose to interpret reality is more reflection of our individual psychology than reality itself. A smart person once said something along the lines of "the most important question a person can ask themselves is ‘is the universe malevolent or benevolent’ You have a choice in how you choose to see the world, you can either focus on the bad, rotten and unfair things on the outside that cannot be easily changed or you can focus on the bad, rotten, angry hateful things on the inside eating at your mind which can slowly be changed by contributing to the small acts of good that still happen everyday.
Anticipates massive downvotes
That’s a nice outlook you have, and I wish it could be more relatable. The things you’re “not worrying about because you can’t change them” are actively ruining that entire dealio though. You don’t need to be thinking about them all the time to do the bare minimum and simply acknowledge that they are current issues, and will remain to be issues until fixed. It also takes little to zero effort to be aware of the fact that “pulling yourself up” is not always viable, precisely because of these issues you’ve been “not thinking about”. The issues give zero fucks about if your or anyone else is thinking of them. They are still making simply surviving, its own problem.
Crying about it doesn’t help anyone, but to say these people just need to “dust themselves off” when you are actively ignoring the issues that are preventing them front being happy or comfortable (not rich, literally just surviving not at the edge), is extremely rich. All that says is you got your piece, and think that means everyone can get theirs. It disregards the possibility of different external and personal conditions. Either of which can, and are, a significant blockage, to that path of progress you refer to.
I actually really appreciate the thought and effort put into your reply here. I will admit freely that my original comment was coming from a place of frustration, no small amount of depression, and desperation. And I think you’re absolutely correct that for the average person it’s probably more important to worry about your own immediate health and surroundings. It’s healthier that way.
The part I disagree with, though, is the idea that just putting on your blinders and ignoring the things you can’t change is a fine way to live your life. We, as citizens, have a duty and a responsibility to keep our country in line. We, as human beings, have a duty and a responsibility to be good shepherds of our planet. We, as parents, have a duty and a responsibility to leave a better world behind for our children than the one we inherited. And I can’t, and won’t, just ignore all that. The universe is not malevolent but it also is not benevolent. It is vast and uncaring far beyond our ability to comprehend it as such, and it is up to us, the thinking, feeling creatures, to forge our future. If we do not act, there will be no action.
Our situation was caused by thinking, feeling human beings, and it will be solved by thinking, feeling human beings and no one else. Or else we will die, and find ourselves as an evolutionary dead-end that tried real hard but didn’t quite make it.
So my question then becomes, at the end of the day - if not you or I, then who? If we do not rage against the night, if we do not reach to the sky to pull ourselves out of the hole we’ve been dug into - then who is going to do it for us? Not God, that’s for sure. Not politicians, or soldiers, or celebrities. So who?