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?
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.