It feels all but certain that I won’t be able to enjoy a prosperous life or get to retire. All of the wealth is going straight to the top. All of the opportunities to move up in the world are being rug-pulled. All of the federal agencies that help keep us safe and healthy are gone. The social safety net is getting flushed down the toilet. We will live in disease and squalor, and the most vulnerable of us will die.
Because I dared to not be a sociopath, I and anyone else who voted for sanity will be deemed enemies of the state and hunted down - which won’t be hard, because it would be trivial to build the most robust surveillance state in human history if it doesn’t exist already.
I myself have disabilities (which I don’t think qualify for benefits) that make it hard, but not impossible, to find a job. The problem is that I just can’t bring myself to do it because I don’t get what the fucking point is anymore. I have to work so hard to get out of this rut just for some fascist fuck to kill me or toss me into a torture facility before I can even experience life on my own.
Have you been in a similar headspace and were able to escape it? If so, what snapped you out of it?
You should worrying about getting paid first… Work is just a way to get to get paid.
100 percent agree. Always fight for pay, not for rhe company trying to pay you less.
I mean, work is always a shit deal, trading life for money but you need money for life also including retirement which is a lot less guaranteed for millenials and younger.
I’d recommend learning a trade like electrician or plumbing. You get fat stacks and control your own time. It takes a bit of time to learn but the work you do will never be a scam since it’s you working for an average person and yourself.
A mentor once gave me an exercise to identify my “core values” or goals or motivators. Out of a list of 60, the task was to narrow down over time and conversation to my top 5.
E.g., I value financial stability. Not to be confused with other values of earning high compensation or achieving lofty corporate positions and recognition.
It helped me frame for myself that I’m going to work to be comfortable and stable and beyond that, my motivations lie elsewhere, like spending time with friends and working on personal projects. There are people who put greater value on achieving a high salary or earning the c-suite title or having their names on patents; that’s perfectly valid and great for them, it’s not me and that is also ok.
There are tons of similar exercises online. If it sounds like something that might help you define your perspective on work differently, to narrow it down to you instead of getting overwhelmed with the whole world’s problems, please look into it and good luck.
For survival. Do you somehow have the choice to simply not have to finance yourself to stay alive? This reeks of privilege, when your worries are about politics rather than staying alive.
Don’t think too much, you get depressed. Do like everyone else, buy shit you don’t need and get likes on social media by bored strangers.
And watch Fight Club.
Rule #1?
Peoples personal truths dont need to make objective sense. This could literally be what they do. Its not trolling just because they arent posturing as an internet expert on life. This is the honesty we need. Doesnt mean we have to aspire to the same goal.
This is a bit right?
No, not at all.
I’ve tried this. Now my house is full of consumer garbage that doesn’t make me happy and in fact frustrates me by cluttering my life.
At least I don’t have to find a place to store likes.
List your useless shit on a buy nothing group. Chat with the people who pick up said shit and learn about their circumstances. If they’re not psychos/grifters, set up means to keep in touch. Repeat this process. Pay attention to things those people need/their circumstances, and connect people who can help each other. Encourage others you meet to do the same.
Keep it up long enough, and bam, you have the bones of a mutual aid group.
I’m talking out of my ass here, but hmm…
I enjoy eating and air conditioning. Gotta work for it.
Yeah, I mean it all really depends on how you define work… people don’t usually quantify their free time properly
The amounts of copium in this thread are extinction-level.
Everything you just said is 100% valid and you are simply correct.
The thing is, it’s not a measure of a healthy mind to thrive in a profoundly sick society where the worst of the worst have won long ago.
There’s this thing called depressive realism which posits that depressed people, by and large, perceive reality much closer to how it really is than neurotypical people.
Essentially, “normal” people have an (innate or learned) positivity bias. Which is usuallly a good thing. People like us are the outliers.
But positivity bias in a world where it’s actually harmful is another thing. The majority of people are walking headlong into their own extinction while going “Ehh, it’s not so bad”, while we should ALL be positively irate and picketing the homes (not companies) of our owner class 24/7.
But it hasn’t happened yet and at this point I don’t know how bad things need to get before people realize what’s going on.
Only those that understand a problem even have a chance to solve it. Those who refuse to understand a problem (often for comfort) are not helpful at best, but usually actively harmful.
The problem of suffering runs far deeper than “Rich vs Poor”. We are all trapped inside constantly decaying bodies that are barely capable of survival. This constant decay leads to almost constant pain even billionaires can not avoid. And then there is our anxious brain worrying about all sorts of things that might or might not happen. Yes, all of this is more bearable inside a villa than inside a tent, but it is still abhorrent. This does not mean the “Rich vs Poor” struggle is not worth while. It is, because there is tremendous preventable suffering within this struggle. This struggle, however, is just a tiny fraction of the problem that is called the human condition.
To those who seek to understand the problem of suffering, i can recommend this video. It eases you into the horror of being alive.
As long as people have something to entertain themselves and something to eat, nothing will change. Even the Ancient Romans knew that: “Two things only the people anxiously desire — bread and circuses.”.
Ah so that’s why bread and games increases loyalism in Civ6 ;)
Mass starvation is historically the usual trigger for revolution. Not always though.
Brother you need some help. The rate of decay is slow and steady and almost imperceptible to a normal lifetime. Finding a job may actually help. Now’s your chance to get in where you fit in. Love games? Get a job at local games store. Like animals? Go apply at a zoo. Find people that you can relate to. Good luck man. You can do it.
“toss me into a torture facility”
What? Step away from the internet for a while.
You are not wrong. It’s a very unfair world we have build. And a lot of people are struggling even though there are plenty of resources to make sure every single person on earth could have their needs met and the opportunity to live a meaningful life.
BUT we have to dare to hope. Because otherwise we just give up and the people on top is counting on that. ”We have the power and there is nothing you can do about that”. I think David Graeber is one of the most hopeful people to read:
“Hope is a tricky business among intellectuals and activists. Cynicism, though it’s often inaccurate about both human nature and political possibilities, gives the appearance of sophistication; despair is often seen as sophisticated and worldly-wise while hopefulness is seen as naive, when the opposite is not infrequently true. Hope is risky; you can lose, and you often do, but the records show that if you try, sometimes you win.
His essay Despair Fatigue opens: “Is it possible to become bored with hopelessness?”
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2024/nov/07/david-graeber-optimistic-anarchist-rebecca-solnit
I like this sentiment. Hope is also very important in my life. In my darkest times, there was always hope to cling to. It wasn’t always realistic and most of it has failed. Some have succeeded though and I am in a much better place now.
However, it is important to learn that failure is a good thing. Society has imprinted in most of us that failure is bad. It is not. Failure is a way to learn. Without failure you cannot learn and you cannot grow.
For this same reason it is perfectly fine for hope to fail. You can learn from that and adjust your hopes and expectations accordingly within the scope of you values.
Get offline, and simplify. Start doing things that are good for you. There is yet joy to come.
I had a friend who was absolutely determined to never work for anyone else, and so he taught himself how to make wire-wrap jewellery to sell. It’s far from an easy thing to do, as he was incredibly motivated and spent most of his time working on it, but if you really do want too, there are ways that a person can support themselves through their own direct actions.
And yes, I second others that suggest you really should spend less time on social media.
I’d say qualitatively and quantitatively, this system is a scam. I get up and deliver by getting myself into interesting shit that matters no matter who’s writing the check (excluding Raytheon or any of those other psycho motherfuckers).
Energy security is important, particularity environmentally compatible forms.
Medical services that don’t bankrupt people are important.
Making processes easier is important even it comes to reducing/eliminating waste.
Even the seemingly mundane ‘basic research’ has a lot of interesting caveats buried below the surface.
Find what interests you in this one life you have, do the work to get there, make friends with people who want you to get there (and help them too).
Good luck, fuck capitalism.
Yep, we need to move on towards Socialism to really begin to start fixing these problems.
It is a scam, but we need to eat and have a roof over our heads. So you have to find something that you can tolerate and try to get paid as much as you can for a little time as you can give. This is the game we are in. Unfortunately in the current system money talks, it is not fair but that is how it is.
you unironically just have to cope with it in whatever way makes sense to you
I personally think of my career as: “some things I do are interesting and keep me from blowing my brains out, the rest I don’t care about”
when it comes to the company I work for: I treat everyone I meet well, no corporate bs, no yes sir yes ma’am. I do whatever I’m assigned and meet deadlines
but I never go above and beyond (because of burnout)
everything you’ve thought about hard work = reward or better pay is a scam
put everything into work-life balance and when you go home focus on things you really want to do, such as hobbies or hang outs
don’t do unpaid overtime, don’t bend over for anyone, don’t offer yourself up when shit goes down
you want to be as invisible as possible while not burning out AND not working your ass off (everyone has different standards for what this means)
tldr: just find some way to cope because there isn’t really anything else you can do
