what do you do when you’ve got the end-of-the-world blues? You know: I ice is melting, our pollinators are dying, the sea is rising, the West Coast is burning, the East Coast is losing it’s beach front houses, fracking is depleting water supplies in America’s driest areas, landslides, sink holes, tornadoes, typhoons, earthquakes, fake clouds, drones, economy crashing, oil slicks, tsunamis, big floods, big droughts, nuclear pollution, air pollution, noise pollution, all this makes me sick!…need I say more? what-what-what do you do when this gets you down?
Comments | 10
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
I feel your pain
I used to write about this a lot but I stopped because people seemed always to respond by saying something along the lines of ‘poor you, you really must lighten up!’ which got on my nerves because I didn’t think lightening up was going to help. And I still don’t if by ‘lighten up’, people mean, ‘deny reality and be happy!’ Reality is right in front of us, but it’s too awful for most people to accept. So, like Bart and Lisa Simpson, I’ve tried to just desensitize myself to it. I also employ a fair amount of gallows humor which can feel forced at times, and also mean. I hum the Belle and Sebastian song Is It Wicked Not To Care. And occasionally I try to write about things I think other people would benefit from knowing about, although that usually confirms my belief that (cue Linus) “We’re doomed….” If you want anything like change, expect silence or push-back, for the most part.
What I’m doing lately is devoting myself to things that I feel I’m good at, and trying to carry on without getting into too many arguments with the very nice people who think I’m too dark. I find that walks in the woods away from the bustle of civilization take my mind off things, and let me experience something like peace. I’ve also been going to Future Collective events which remind me that there is a whole generation of young people in town who have to believe there’s a future, and are trying to make one that isn’t bound up in money and conformity. An evening of punk and indie rock can really clear your head of the cobwebs of modern life!
A good rant on the subject to a sympathetic friend or spouse can also help, as long as you don’t make a habit of it. Sometimes, it makes you want to SHOUT! put your hands up in the air and wave them like you just don’t care!
But that’s me. Things do frankly suck, and it’s really hard to live with sometimes, but live with them we must… If anyone else has ideas, I’d love to hear them.
Thank you Lise
yes, this feeling is only temporary and I know~ I don’t know what the future holds. It’s powerful when it has me in it’s grip. thank you. I like your suggestions. shake me up a bit and be in the present. Nothing like the present to make that blues go away.
Detach-22
I also get distraught, and sometimes to a similar degree, over mundane outrages…seeing a parent hit a kid in public, drivers who don’t let others merge, or texting drivers (including law officers who do it), dog owners who release havoc and take no mind, payed bills for services not rendered, animal poachers and family moochers, petty tyrants and party poopers…
Linus is existential, Pig Pen wears the cloud of ruin, and Eeyorre is chronically gloomy. But these characters have pals so that’s some kind of solace. Nowadays it’s hard to rely too much on others.
Students of Buddhism know about the greater and lesser vehicles as paths to salvation…well, it feels like we also have the same in regards to destruction. Any list of doomables, incomplete as it is, surely looms over all of us. It feels inescapable and it probably is.
So when we meet the Buddah, and are prompted to kill him, I guess the idea is we must each find our own way. The story doesn’t say whether to starve him, kill with comedy, or take him out with kindness.
For me, books, skating, music…methods of restoration, even if assailed, are essential.
It is pretty scary
but to answer your question literally, when I start to feel that fear creeping in, I put my energy into doing something to create positive change. I learned while downhill biking to focus on where I want to go – if I focus on the hazard I ride right into it.
Keep on Keeping on.
I relax knowing that everything I’ve ever read is coming to pass.
You just have to believe.
This planet thrives on an amazing random accident of life
As a philosopher I share my sister’s view “one day at a time.”
I live worry free of the big picture. That doesn’t mean that I don’t have opinions and thoughts on the vagaries of life, they simply are not within my scope of personal anxiety.
There are no unpredictable or capricious event occurrences that I see as end of world scenarios, mainly because there is no such thing.
If we all knew what an amazing random accident of life this planet thrives on, we’d appreciate being the little flecks that we are. Cheers.
Get Over It!
Amazing that man feels so superior to his surroundings, that details he can’t control destroys him at least mentally!
Squeek...
We’ve been taught that knowledge is power. But consider that a chick jumps out of a tree with no thought of how to fly. And yet, it does. An acorn grows into an oak without the study of philosophy. Or the daily news 😉
Nice chicks
Just yesterday I saw two geese take their goslings out for a very preliminary swim. The chicks still were more fur than feather, and the parents kept close and kept a watchful eye. They did very well.
(The day before I saw them walk up to the edge of the water and investigate it a bit, then swim in a shallow pool.)
I got 'em
I know what you mean Robyn, it comes and goes for me. I have been watching a lot of the English TV shows that the library has on DVD, and they always seem to be offering each other cups of tea in a crisis.
I know this is an old post, but… things haven’t really gotten any better, so shall we meet at the tea house?
Janis