I'm a regular lurker on a lot of subreddits and I've notitced that collapse subs are very focused on mental health. Political subs are hit or miss, you never know. But collapse has been regularly involved and I really can't express my gratitude.

Other subs have cute little disclaimers. Collapse almost has a TOS. How is it that this depressing community takes better care of their users than anyone else? Its a mystery, to me anyway

But losing David Lynch today was a tough blow. There are beacons of light in this dark and scary world and it’s always hard when one of those lights flicker out.

So much already and we aren’t even through January.

Thanks for listening

I don't want to sound like a psychopath who's celebrating the LA conflageration, doomers already get a bad rep.

The simple fact is that whenever something like this happens it validates all the decisions and sacrifices I've made in the last several years. We're constantly being gaslighted by the media concerning collapse, made to feel crazy, made to feel guilty for dropping out of society. There's also a good deal of self doubt, I see other people who are living very comfortably and getting even more invested in civilization, it makes me question if I've made the right decisions in life.

Life would be so much easier if I followed the crowd but knowing that it's all temporary I can't let myself get trapped on the sinking ship.

I do feel sorry for the people suffering but it also inspires me to keep pushing on despite all the difficulties. All the toiling in the soil, the building, the rejection of modern comforts. With every disaster I know I've chosen the right path in life and it drives me on to work even harder.

I recently switched to the service industry but was laid off. Out of work again. Applying for server jobs but what else should I look into? I can’t go back to corporate 9-5 desk job. I worked in marketing and design for about 8 years. Started my own event photography company. It’s hard to keep going but I need a job quick! What do you recommend I look into? I know health care and trade schools are good for jobs that will survive the future, but what else? Need something asap but willing to invest in something else for the long term.

To some extent I’ve been living with awareness of climate change and a sense of impending doom since I was in high school in the early to mid 2000s. I grew up in a highly political and progressive leaning family and being autistic kind of absorbed fully the implications of where the world was heading long before most people did.

The problem is that on top of this I was also struggling to make friends, to get through school and find work and complete all the normal milestones of life. I did make it through school ultimately and graduated with a degree but ever I’ve continued to struggle with intense depression and a sense of impending doom on a daily basis. I briefly had some success as a journalist and was told I was a good writer but trying to write about politics in the Trump era just further heightened my sense of impending doom and the Adderall I was taking for my executive dysfunction just caused me to spiral deeper.

All of this led to my being out of work for over a year during the pandemic which eventually destroyed what limited executive functioning I had left and since then I’ve made futile efforts to find work. Discovering I’m trans (mtf) didn’t help because it just heightened my sense of impending doom, realizing that I could be one of the victims of the very system I’d been aware of since high school. I also destroyed a deeply loving relationship because of my inability to find work and heavy weed use which was the only thing that seems to help me cope with the world and feel happy for a bit.

Now I’m 36, living in section 8 housing and trying to muster up the courage to even apply for a minimum wage job while having a handful of distant friends from around the world. It’s weird watching virtually everything happen in the world pretty close to how I predicted it would and I suppose I should be numb to it by now but I refuse. I almost feel like if I stopped hurting I’d become exactly what I’ve always hated in others who seem better adjusted to this world. I wish I’d had a carefree youth, I wish I’d had the illusion that things could get better like so many did but I feel like happiness just passed me by. I still hold out hope that I can make my life better, i have moments of joy from playing music and still have dreams but I just have no clue how I can achieve any of them in this painful world.

When my grief about the unimaginable beauty and wonder of this world being destroyed becomes too much to bear, I remind myself that I am merely a vessel for the universe to experience itself.

Conscious beings existed long before hominids, who witnessed the rise and fall of the very shapes of life.

Consciousness necessitates perception. Our only inherent purpose is to experience the universe. We are a part of the universe that gets to experience the despair of our world collapsing, like a great tragedy on stage.

It is a gift to be able to experience such a profound, ultimate sorrow. The fact that it is tragic shows how much we love being alive.

So grieve. Be the universe dancing in itself as the paradise it sustained for millennia collapses. Experience the highs of joy and depths of despair. Do it all while you can.

I allow myself to become an open vessel for reality itself to feel. And in doing so it gives my grief a purpose when I feel powerless: the power to love as death approaches. I give myself permission to grieve, because I would want the universe to be able to witness itself die and have thoughts and feelings about its death.

When you know there is nothing more you can do, grieving is enough. The pain means that, right now, you are among the living, the experiencing, the thinking. How wonderful of an opportunity that is.

I just don't understand anymore. I'm a highschooler who is also gay and I live in America. I've been watching the train speed toward the edge of the rail all my life and even still, I am. I just...don't see the point of it all. I don't see the point of doing my school work, doing my chores, trying to make allowance money, going above and beyond to get good grades knowing that by the time I'm supposed to be in college it'll all have been for nothing. I contemplated suicide a lot, and I have self harmed before, but it always scared me, so it was only once. But I'm starting to care less. I'm tired of being scared, tired of running, tired of avoiding thinking about my future because all I can see is a sky that's blood red. Climate collapse, fascism, wars...I hate this. I'm over it.

The fires almost got to my families homes and was coming for my apartment. I fled to arizona and have stayed with friends. I had left these Reddit communities but I feel like my denial may not necessarily be the best. Maybe I really do need to start thinking about my future and how I might homestead. Maybe I do need to give up on living in LA even though I’ve been there my whole life.

I had thought of nuclear war occurring but oddly hadn’t thought of a firestorm of this magnitude happening from the forest fires. People are being surprisingly chill about how it actually played out. The whole city could have gone if the winds hadn’t died down. Or if a bad actor lit a bunch of places up at once. I think the whole city could burn in the next 5-10 years..

And it seems like city officials have known this was a possibility and kept it from everyone..

I think I’ve started grieving because it will never be the same… and I’ve come back here because I’ve been collapse aware but chose to put it away for a while. Maybe it would still be better to go back to not knowing so much?

Just curious about what all the thoughts and plans are here. I’m a late 90s baby, so it hasn’t made any sense to me. 40 years from now? It’s hard to imagine retirement being the same experience.

https://youtu.be/SxJxfFEZGkI

I honestly don’t know if we’ll make it.

I can’t say with any degree of certainty that truth and sanity will prevail, that the world will stop burning, that we’ll stop being cruel to each other and start moving toward health and harmony.

Maybe our species is approaching the end of its run here. I cannot tell you for sure that it isn’t.

What I can tell you for sure is that there is a magpie outside my window, and that my eyes are dripping with love for it.

I can tell you I went for a walk about an hour ago, and the ground felt delicious on my feet while the wind caressed my hair.

Maybe we don’t get to be here for much longer. I can’t honestly tell you otherwise. But I can tell you it’s very possible to relish each precious instant we are here.

The universe will sing to you, if you listen. There are kisses hidden in the rustling leaves. There are galaxies hidden in the sounds of trains.

We can live from there. Even amid the raging fires. Even amid the genocide and pain. Even amid all the advertising, the vapid Hollywood dogshit, the fast fashion, the phoniness, the deceit. We can cherish the world like a mother cherishes a newborn baby, even if we wind up doing so while watching it die.

We are living in dystopia, but we don’t need to be living in hell. As fraudulent and destructive as this civilization is, and as all-pervasive as its madness seems to be, it is still built on the surface of an ancient planet which pulsates with primordial wisdom. Just below the superficial layer of the cacophony of human madness, there are uncharted depths in which strange leviathans swim.

I’m not here to tell you we’re going to win this thing. I’m not here to sell a false and unearned certainty in a happy ending. I’m here to tell you that this world is one hell of a glorious ride regardless of what happens, and that it would be a damn shame if you didn’t appreciate it while it lasts.

You don’t need to waste your life as one of those jaded, world-weary politically conscious people who think they know too much to be happy, and that everything is too dark and dismal to enjoy their time here. You don’t need to choose between being happy and being well-informed. We are engulfed in an endless explosion of miracles and beauty in every living instant on this earth no matter what happens and no matter how much we we know. It is only a failure of our own perception if we don’t recognize this.

We’ve got a lot of work to do here, and we’re going to continue seeing some very ugly things happening in our world for the foreseeable future. It does nobody any good for us to let the darkness burn us out and exhaust us instead of learning to enjoy our time on this planet while we fight.

I know I’ve shared this same message before in various ways, but that’s only because I see a great need for it. I’ve heard too many people saying they are feeling torn down and broken by the terrible things happening in this world, and that they don’t know how to go on.

You go on by going in. By diving right in to reality, in all its burning, blood-soaked, agonizing glory. By feeling it all, all the way through, without trying to lean back and compartmentalize any part of yourself away from it. The ocean is unbothered by the waves not because it is separate from them but because it is inseparably one with them.

Feel the pain. Cry the tears. Witness the suffering. Experience the beauty. Notice the endless eruption of love which lies at the heart of all things. Celebrate the magpie. Cherish the wind in your hair and the ground beneath your feet.

No matter what happens, nobody can take these things from you. No matter what else the bastards might take, they can never take away your innate exuberance at living a human life on this terrestrial wonderball.

That’s the secret to finding happiness in the midst of a genocidal dystopia on a dying world. Not by hiding from the reality of it, but by diving right into it without holding anything back.

If you do this, you will find that there is so very, very much more joy, love, beauty and exhilaration in this adventure than there is heartbreak and pain. There is vast delight to be found in the smallest of things.

Our minds tend to focus on what’s wrong and what’s bad, while overlooking how absolutely fucking amazing it is to be living as a human organism on this earth. This habit can be unlearned. The gift of each moment can be appreciated as it comes. Everything that arises can be met for the first time with wide-eyed marvel.

And we can keep fighting in the meantime. And we can do so with deep gratitude in our chests for every magical instant.

Everything seems so overwhelming to me. I feel like I am barely functional in a normally functioning society and yet mental health resources all seem to think I am doing ok since I have not lost my job or tried to unalive myself. Here is the break down of my problems:

1. I can't seem to be able to do any basic task other than keeping myself alive. I do not cook. I order takeout. I do not clean. I live in filth. I look at my apartment and am overwhelmed at the mess. I have tried the old "just clean for 5 minutes trick and even that seems to take most of my energy. Anything related to "executive dysfunction" seems to be laughed at by any medical professional I find in this damn continent. It seems only the US of all places knows proper mental healthcare. Everywhere else it's "have you tried going to the gym/going on walks?" I legit do not understand why people WANT to live. People who survive in extreme situations baffle me. It makes me wonder if I somehow either lack some fundamental survival instinct or maybe everyone secretly hates life but are trapped in this hell due to having families they don't want to see get hurt. It's the only reason I am here (even though the people who I don't want to hurt don't feel the same way about me).

2. I require way too much food. When I a, bored, I eat. I also develop crippling migraines if I don't eat every 4 hours. Fasting is suicide for me. This will be a problem in famine situations

3. I can't bring myself to teach myself any "useful skill". I know how to code. That's it. My engineering degree was worthless. I cannot do anything with my hands. They sweat a lot and everything slips. All attempts to use anti perspirants have failed.

4. I am nice but I just can't stand being around people too long. I just end up staying silent and listen. Some people enjoy it, others don't. When I speak for too long I will usually put my foot in my mouth and say something stupid. If I stay quiet, a lot of people (especially my family) seem to go into "interrogation mode" and start asking me frustrated questions in a sense that somehow I was supposed to convey this information on my own (I.e. "what do you like to do in your spare time? Who were you with? Why don't you visit more often?") my social battery is tiny. Ideally I would only talk to people once a week on the phone if I feel like it. All my friendships were people who came to me and thought I was an interesting person. These are the people who are my friends for life. Sadly, they are scattered across the globe and the dominating paradigm of friendships from what I can gather is constant maintenance, presence for the sake of presence, talking for the sake of talking and gossiping about others.

5. I live in a foreign country. My home country is full of backwards, mean people who would likely beat me to death or exclude me for thinking I am gay or simply being quiet. I don't want to go back. But I fear no country in Europe will accept me either. I a, white and European which helps but who knows for how long.

All this is overwhelming and makes me wonder I should never have been born in the first place since I am clearly a thing that could only exist in a society such as ours. How do I begin to solve this?

It seems pretty hopeless. I get it. Most everyone here knows the science behind global warming. We know that all of these delicate systems are starting to tip and are going to have a cascading effect that some climate models haven't quite accounted for. For months I scrolled r/collapse and found myself getting extremely upset that our planet is a runaway train and there is no superhero, no Keanu Reeves, to stop it from crashing.

And I'm still not depressed. Why? I've learned a very important lesson the past two years that I'd love to share with you all. Hopefully it's something you might try to alleviate the anxiety, hopelessness, fear, and depression you have aboutt he state of things.

Lesson #1
I lived in a very tiny community in Hawaii for a few summers. It's so small, everyone knows everyone. And while I was there, I learned about community in a way that I never had, having lived in a very individualistic busy city transient environment.

In this small community I discovered that everyone donates. Everyone pitches in. On any given day, my host was dropping off food for the eldery around town, or helping a friend move, gifting clothes to a neighbor, or volunteering elsewhere. She let gardeners take extra fruit if they needed it. She in turn had a car donated to her. Others around the island were always coming together to clean up beaches, restore old fishing ponds, remove invasive species. The sheer amount of volunteerism that went on in that tiny community was ASTOUNDING. You couldn't bump into a local who didn't volunteer or give back several times a week in some way or shape.

Why I share this with you? The lesson I learned, is that the most impactful power an individual has is within 5 miles of their locality. Their local community. When you focus on the world within five miles of you, impact seems attainable and IT IS. They show up to board meetings when a developer is coming in to build over sacred land. They talk to their local elected official. There is this mindset that everyone is helping others. I think a lot of this has to do with Hawaiian culture and the great sense of family and community.

But what does this have to do with you?

My recommendation is this: ignore everything else in the world and focus on your immediate neighborhood. Can you volunteer? Can you donate to a no buy facebook group? Can you shop local? Can you volunteer your strength in a way that serves someone within five miles of you? Volunteer, give back and help make your community RESILIENT by making it feel like others are here to help others in times of need.

Lesson #2
Stop scrolling. You know everything you need to know about collapse. About the environment. All you're doing is scrolling. Scrolling isn't doing anything for you now. It's not helping you. It's not helping your family. You are already aware. You don't need more awareness. You can log off.

I know, I know, haters will say 'ignorance is bliss'. That's not the message. The message is you are ALREADY informed. And my guess is that you are not doing anything different than you would be if you were not informed.

Posting tweets, posting IG stories or any of the social media passivity of 'spreading awareness' is not meaningful. I fully believe spreading awareness on social media at this point is passive and serves little to no purpose. Citizens who want to know, at this point, are in the know. Those who want to stick their heads in the sand, well, forcing them out of the sand and into your state of hopelessness is not helpful either.

GOING BACK TO LESSON #1
Being more informed is not action at this point. It's harming your mental health and it's likely causing you to feel powerless. Here's the good news! You're not powerless. There is literally so fucking much you can do in your local community. Anyone who says 'well that's not going to stop climate change' can GTFO. You are not going to be a global superhero so stop shaming others into trying to live into this ideal that you fail to live yourself.

What you can do is find out where you can serve at the local level, within your five square miles. Resilient communities are needed for the future. People helping people. That's what's needed. That's what you can do.

List of ideas:
- Donate things to your local No Buy groups
- Sign up for lasagnalove and cook a lasagna for a family IN YOUR AREA
- Get vetted to volunteer for a local school; read to kids
- Sign up for Big Brother, Big Sister and be a mentor to a child in need
- Spend a saturday morning picking up trash along your street and post to r/Detrashed and your local subreddit
- Look for interesting community events in your neighborhood and simply show up and chat with people
- Volunteer a friday night to chatting with lonely elderly people at a local senior living center
- Attend a local government meeting. Just show up and listen. You don't even need to speak! Just start with learning what's going on in your community. What are people concerned about? What does your elected official stand for?
- Write in to an elected official about something you care about!
- Pack a homeless person a kit of essentials and give it to someone in need
- Look for local groups giving back and try joining one for an event
- Sign up for Catchafire and find an organization you can donate an hour of your time

Folks, there is so much you can do within 5 miles of your home. Start there. Start with what is manageable and you will find so much peace, empowerment, and joy.

Do you have other ideas? Share yours below!

I know that we are all going to die one day. Some from old age, some from cancer, car accidents. War. I should major in environmental science if it’s what I want to do and if I see it as a worthwhile pursuit— but let’s be real. People going to college right now, including me, are doing it to build lives in the future. I wanted to be a wildlife biologist, or a park ranger. I suppose I wanted trees and sun and more life, and more joy.

Now I’m in the same place I was four years ago when I was 16, laying in my childhood bedroom weeping, caught in the intersection between grief and panic. I don’t think there will be anything left for me to live for in ten years. I can see my family and myself plowing through what was meant to be retirement funds, college tuitions, just to find places to stay and food to eat. Forget any recognizable wilderness for me to be hired to protect— that’s a dream at this point. I will think of snow, of bugs and birds, and it will be like the elderly today babbling about how ten dollars used to be a livable wage.

I feel like there is genuinely no point in striving for anything anymore. Even preparing for the apocalypse is pointless. Storing gasoline and canned food and seeds— for what? To live for another five years like a factory farm animal? What’s the use? What is the use?

Hi all, I’m 35 and spouse is 41 and we just haven’t been able to buy a house/apartment yet for a few reasons. We could move out to the country/more rural for lower prices if our jobs didn’t require us to be in the city, but that’s not really an option right now.

I feel really behind in life because of this and then I’m like well with everything going on in the world does it really matter if you’re a homeowner or not? At the end of the day we love our city and rental apartment (and have a fantastic landlord) so I guess that’s something.

Thoughts?

I used to live in the US, but can't afford healthcare or housing there, plus it's going from Worse to Worst at an exponential rate. And moving to Latin America has been the best decision I've ever made. People generally aren't collapse aware, though, because life is generally good, even if you're poor, because people are generally good, friendly, kind, rational, and accepting of each other.

Lots of ways I could search for groups to join, but I don't know the best ways. Any suggestions?

So I’m 23 and live in Chicago. I feel I should prepare and prep for something but idk for what specifically for living in Chicago. I do feel like another pandemic may start soon at any time (bird flu). But idk what else should I stock up but in a reasonable manner. Also on a budget because somehow I still need to pay bills (for whatever reason🙄). Also given where I live idk should I consider moving somewhere else in the state or to near by states in the future? I also have no property I can go to and I have almost no survival skills. Honestly idk why I’m thinking to survive an emergency situation in the first place if there is even a point anymore

I feel so hopeless and have been having a lot of panic. At this point I feel like I somehow need to come to terms with the fact that climate change is likely going to kill us. How can I accept and be okay with death and dying like this? Any resources/books/tools/words of wisdom/advice....ect to help me accept the probability I will slowly watch the world around me crumble and die, watch loved ones die, and eventually die myself probably in suffering from the implications of climate change? I am not religious, although have always been spiritual believing in energy, so unfortunatley I wouldn't find anything religious too comforting.

I feel so hopeless and have been having a lot of panic. At this point I feel like I somehow need to come to terms with the fact that climate change is likely going to kill us. How can I accept and be okay with death and dying like this? Any resources/books/tools/words of wisdom/advice....ect to help me accept the probability I will slowly watch the world around me crumble and die, watch loved ones die, and eventually die myself probably in suffering from the implications of climate change? I am not religious, although have always been spiritual believing in energy, so unfortunatley I wouldn't find anything religious too comforting.

I'm a former Alt-teacher of high school students, usually dealing with some of the most stressful and disparaging situations. I know what feeling hopeless can do to a young mind, and its killing me to see so many smart young people be so lost on here. How could they not be though? We all are, but I would be remiss to say that it isn't harder on anyone under 25.

I know everything seems incredibly bleak kiddos, but if you want to be able to do something about how you feel, you must act. The best thing for you to do is to find or MAKE community. The only thing in life that makes it worth living are the connections we have with other living beings. I'm telling you, there are people your age nearby that feel the same way you do. They just might take a bit of time to find, but that effort is worth it. You might be the one who saves that other young person from blinding despair. That is meaningful, that makes real change. That is WORTH doing.

Being on this forum is one form of community, but nothing really compares to being with those who can relate to you in more ways than just being on here.

How does one do this?

-Look up mutual aid groups in your area. If there isn't one, start one. This may seem like it is a daunting task, but really, all organizing can start by grabbing a coffee and having those important conversations. Here's a link to help start.

-Volunteer at a group that is already established and start talking to people about these issues. A lot of inspiration can be sparked by knowing someone else might benefit from your help or company.

Lastly, you're not dead yet. There are still so many things you can do to make this hell ride an easier one for yourself and others. You can make a difference, even if it seems hopelessly small. It is something.

"You meet saints everywhere. They can be anywhere. They are the people behaving decently in an indecent society." -Kurt Vonnegut

I'm about to turn 33. Ive been collapse aware since I was 16 and watched the environment/climate change in that time. It used to snow feet in the Salt Lake Valley where I grew up in a storm. Now it might snow a few inches in a storm and is usually melted off fairly quick. The wars in the middle east, europe and around the world seem to be escalating a an alarming rate. I dont need to tell you about the environmental destruction thats occurring right now because its being livestreamed by thousands of phones every day.

I'm really doing my best to be a better human and work on myself and engage in my community in positive ways but that feeling at the base of my brainstem seems to creep a bit closer into my mind every day. Not that I regret all my pursuits of trying to better melf so I can show up to life and for others better but damn, seems like my reptilian brain seems to be really firing off lately. I watched Peter Kalmus' interview on Democracy now recently and the guy who has studied climate his whole career, seem to break while talking about whats coming and I cant get it out of my head.

Anyway, I don't know why Im posting other than the reason that sometimes i need to get my thoughts out where people can see them. As Carl Sagan said "it underscores our responsibility to deal more kindly with one another, and to preserve and cherish the pale blue dot." Stay safe out there friends. Spend time with those you love and around things that grow. Much love.

tl;dr what are some traditions (or modifications to existing traditions) we could start that see collapse-adaptable or -resilient?

Recently, my partner and I have been having Sunday breakfasts. I learned to bake biscuits a few years back, so we kinda riff around that - bacon & eggs, or sausage patties & skillet potatoes - simple stuff that biscuits complement and are easy to cook. Sometimes we go big and have pancakes, or sometimes we go lazy and thaw & bake some savory scones that I batch prep & freeze.

We have really been enjoying this little new-to-us tradition. Yeah, it’s yummy, but it’s comforting emotionally too, just sitting in a sunny kitchen, enjoying each other’s company.

This month (prompted by H5N1), I stocked up on some shelf- and freezer-stable ingredients so that I could still make biscuits if I can’t get my preferred ingredients, because I don’t want supply chain bs to keep us from this experience.

It got me thinking about how to make our traditions resilient to collapse and how to start new ones that are more collapse resilient than what we do now. For instance… we love drive-through Christmas light displays (it’s a big part of our personal history)… and I can think of various ways to modify that but still keep the spirit of it, like walk through our own neighborhood instead of driving, or lighting all of our candles on hand at once, or bundling up and going stargazing.

I’m curious to hear from folks here what kinds of traditions you have plans to keep despite collapse affecting them!

I’m finding the grounding effect of knowing that Sunday mornings are just for us + warm homemade biscuits to be very helpful for my mental health and collapse prep. As childfree people with only loose ties to family, we’ve done a shit job over the years of mindfully making and keeping more “traditional” sorts of traditions, but I want to be more mindful of this going forward… I’m hoping to find some inspiration from y’all!

I’m 30 and have been putting as much into retirement accounts over the course of my career as I could manage because that’s what you’re “supposed” to do. But it feels likely I’ll never see that money? I don’t see myself being able to enjoy a peaceful retirement starting in 2060 (not that financially I’m that on track anyway thanks to late-stage capitalism, but I also feel like climate catastrophes will make that impossible), and if I hadn’t put tens of thousands of dollars towards retirement, I’d have more ability now to leave a job when it’s making me miserable, travel a bit, just have some more breathing room now. Will I even be able to access that money in 2060, or will there be a run on the banks when breadbaskets start collapsing—or even fairly soon, people are starting to notice the lack of eggs/extremely high prices given H5N1. I’m also disabled and deteriorating and hanging onto my current job by a thread, so I’m definitely coming from a perspective of “I wish I had that money now so that I could focus on my health and getting my life under control instead of giving all my energy to my job.” I feel like I can’t really ask people I know for help making these decisions because they’ll just think I’m crazy saying the end of the world is near, but how am I supposed to make these decisions when the future is so uncertain and volatile?

i CANNOT do this anymore dude. ever since yesterday i’ve been tweaking. the world has genuinely become such an awful place and no one seems to care. cali burning, ocean animals dying because of the water temps rising, the weather progressively getting hotter and hotter every year (seriously like wtf october is NOT supposed to be hot?? why is everyone so nonchalant about that???), etc etc. the world will never wake up until its too late. as a 17 yr old, i hoped i would be long gone before the world ended or was close to it, but it lowkey doesn’t seem like thats likely with how shit is going. aside from the climate crisis that people refuse to believe is real, everyone wants to poach lgbtq people. like hello this is not the 1940s why are lgbtq people STILL being targeted. one of my biggest dreams i’ve had since i was a kid was to make the world a better place (sticking up for people, helping the environment, etc.) but it just feels empty and hopeless, like thats not possible anymore. like is there even a point in trying to go to college anymore?? i just wish i was back in the 2010s, when i was a kid who was blissfully unaware of like literally everything. i dont know how much time we have left before a collapse, everything is bleak right now. and i dont see any improvements in the future, especially since that orange freak’s got the country in a chokehold.

For those who have any space, it is always worth it.

College senior studying engineering. Been dealing with depression for a while, but one thing I've majorly looked forward to for years now is starting a family of my own once I get settled down (ideally ~2030). As things are, I excel in my field, going into a stable, well-paying line of work, and would be fully able to support children. So it's been devastating for me coming to the conclusion again and again that society's on the downswing and that my prospective children would be worse off than me.

As dumb as it is, I was first seriously introduced to the idea of collapse by Kaczynski's manifesto, which I read while writing a high school paper (during peak COVID) about how social isolation psychologically destroys people. Found it to be surprisingly lucid and ended up agreeing with half of his arguments/observations. It ruined me. It's made me critically aware of my relationship with technology and the industrial world. I've spent the past few years now studying/watching the ongoing ecological and sociocultural decline just about everywhere. Materially, I'm pretty much convinced we're going to be experiencing serious routine food shortages and economic inflation worldwide, as well as climate migration, and consequent geopolitical stress (war), within the next 5-10 years. Culturally, I think we're moving in a general negative direction as well, having seen family, friends, neighbors, classmates becoming increasingly asocial and ungrounded, through COVID and beyond. Politicized knee jerk reactions to things. General distrust in academia and figures of authority (though not entirely without reason). Probably due in large part to social media/internet having hooks in most people, giving everyone their own platform to push/amplify/consume their own distorted pseudo-realities, basically optimally designed and served to keep people doom scrolling for longer so they can be sold more things/ideas. No shared experience like broadcast TV, little sense of community or connectedness, etc.

I wholly do not expect these things to get better, at least within my lifetime. I was born at exactly the right time to experience the peak average standard of living in all of human history (taught that I would get an education and have children and extend these opportunities to them and others), and then see every institution and ecosystem crumble in real time while being hyper-aware of it all. Given how much I've struggled seeing everything (i.e. how much my kids would likewise struggle), it's become an unavoidable reality that having children would be cruel to them, and I really don't know how to deal with that since it's been one of my major life goals since I was young. A large part of me wants to be selfish and stubborn and just do it anyway so I can be happy for my own sake (and hopefully produce some more well-educated leaders the future world will sorely need). But I sincerely don't think I could ever honestly promise them as nearly "good" (comfortable?) a life I or my parents or grandparents have had. Worst case scenario, things really fall apart and I won't be able to even support myself, let alone them. As far as I can tell, things are realistically gonna end up like the world in Interstellar, where industry, STEM R&D, and service/entertainment/travel economies largely collapse and we revert to subsistence farming in the face of irreversible climate change. I don't know.

Every moment the tick tick tick sounds louder. Fascism is nigh and opposition leaders are now where to be seen.

I have been reworking my life for the coming regime by finding ways to be of help to allies. All my previous planning was predicated on the stability of certain systems that are about to be obliterated. I was arrogant that Trump could not win again, and now I don't know if I can shift my life quick enough to be the ally I strive to be.

Thanks for listening.

Edit:spelling

Fires in cali causing billions of damage, homes out there are multimillion dollars each. Hurricane damages causing billions on the east coast every single year. How is this paid for? Won’t insurance companies/FEMA run out of money, and quickly? Where will everyone go?

i had to watch my birth state get torn apart in hurricanes last year, i have to watch as my next door neighbor state gets set on fire and worry if it’s gonna come for me next, i have to deal with a dictator coming into office, i have to deal with the fact that i know the next four years of my life will be spent fighting tooth and nail to go against horrible bills to try and make things slightly less terrible, and all for fucking what?

i’m tired of hurting and fighting, i just want to curl into a ball and cry but i know i couldn’t live with myself if i did that. i just hope that i’ll help to make things even .0001% less bad down the road because i’ll be damned if i do nothing