I look back over history and see that every system of social organization ever was rigged against the people at the bottom, and then I look further back into nature and see that nature is literally trying to kill you all day every day, and I just take it as par for the course.

Our current system is less rigged against me than would be literally any other system under which I might have lived at any point in the past. I’m more free and supported than almost any other human who has ever lived, and for that I’m grateful.

I guess you could say I deal with it via the deliberate choice to be grateful, and to ignore the people who think I’m foolish for being grateful.

My mental health is certainly better than it would be if I chose to be bitter and resentful of the facts of existence.

Being surrounded by hostile forces that want to exploit and eat me is just part of existence. I am also surrounded by forces that want to nurture and assist me. I focus on those.

The ideal is to be capable of fighting a war, and capable of laughing in easy joy at the same time. Why? Because existence is war, and war is dreary and miserable if it’s the only thing that exists.

Elie Wiesel wrote in Night about finding freedom while strapped down to a table being tortured by concentration camp guards. It’s hard to find a scenario in which a person is more fucked. But it was there that he discovered the freedom of his spirit. If he can be free in that situation, I can be free in this situation.

Quite frankly, a big part of managing the stress when looking at the macro-political situation and how that intertwines with the macro-econonics and fucks up the microeconomics of households, is to not dwell on it. Too much doomer content bringing you down? know when to stop consuming and do something else. There’s a point where you cannot change it and making yourself depressed thinking about it too much is just going to make your own life shittier.

I also work hard to find the best path to survive, thrive and live my best life. Sometimes that means taking some time to learn the rules of the game that’s set up so you don’t dive head first into the pitfalls that are setup for those who don’t pay attention to the rules. Learn more about the big scary words at play as you sign up for an insurance plan, and what they mean. Learn about interest (both on your debts and your funds) and how interest plays into your finances, how to budget and figure out what you can afford, and how to financially improve upon your previous choices that occurred either due to lack of knowledge or due to making the least bad decision available to you at a given point in time.

But also make sure to find joy and happiness in a bunch of different timescales to both be happier and improving yourself so that no matter how mundane your life is, you have sparks of joy to keep you always looking forwards to something:

• Small affordable indulgences, be that a yummy food like a small block of aged cheese, or maybe a small lego set or a small game. Whatever makes you happy that you wouldn’t normally spend on
• Take a moment to appreciate something in your environment. I like to take a minute to look at the stars every time I’m outside at night, but also actively take in the trees and patches of woodland and how they’re currently reacting to the weather. If you can keep a small plant, just checking in on your little potted plant every day can bring its own joy in caring for your little buddy
• Find a creative outlet, no matter how much you suck at it, just find something you can make that you enjoy making
• Pick something fun you can look forwards to at all times that’s just around the corner. A club that meets monthly to do a hobby you enjoy does well. I then try to also make sure to find some excuse to get together with friends and spend a little more money than I otherwise would every few months so its extra special and I can really look forward to those get togethers.
• Start exercising regularly. Your body was made to move, and making sure you’re actually using your body and pushing your muscles a bit 3-5 times a week is amazing for both your general health but also your mental health too. Take a walk, ride a bike, make a fool of yourself on a dance floor, struggle to do a pushup/pullup. It doesn’t have to be structured, just something to actually move your whole body throughout the week and actually use your muscles

TL;DR STOP DOOMSCROLLING AND GO POKE SOMETHING WITH A STICK…it might even be a little fun

In EMS, there’s a saying: if you drop the baby, pick it up.

Dropping the baby is like the worst thing you can ever do, but for Christ’s sake, don’t just leave it on the ground, do something about it. I’ve gotten involved in local government. Local government is great because you can still affect change there, and you can affect change that can snowball into something bigger with other people in other local governments making those changes. I’m on the city’s bicycle commission, and I’m working with local organizations like the ‘Council for Leadership and Justice’ and ‘Strong Towns’ to try and make the world a better place than I found it. Is it futile? Sure feels like it sometimes, time will tell I guess, but the trying helps me feel better for a few reasons, not least of which because it puts me in contact with others who care enough to try too.

I don’t want to overstate this, but some liberation can come from within.

Yeah, we all have to play their game, but internalizing the values our sick society places on us is optional. Make peace with the things you alone cannot immediately change. Resist in the small ways you are able, find joy where you can, and do what you can for the people you care about. Free your mind and your ass will follow.

First I realized that I was reading the news for entertainment, not to actually get informed in any meaningful actionable way.

Then I started to doubt any headline that confirmed my biases. “Trump says terrible thing” boils down to a 3 second sound bite with zero context. “Trump voters regret voting for him” is a summary of 8 tweets taken off a recent trump post. “New study” has 23 participants.

In other words read the damn article. Things are bad, but not quite as relentlessly bad as social media would have you believe.

Also, I vote, I donate, I march. There’s not much else I can do, so what does all this “being informed” do me? Me being miserable doesn’t help anybody.

Second: stop consuming rage bait. 50% of Reddit is just videos of people being insane in public. It’d have you believing that we live in a warzone. We don’t. There is nothing to be gained from watching that shit.

Outside of that, picked up some video games and even started reading books again. Trying to deprogram the brainrot that makes it hard to concentrate on anything for more than 10 seconds.

Oh, and alcohol.

Cannabis and passive suicidal ideation

Edit: And if you’re like me, make sure you call 988 and talk to someone. That’s what I had to do earlier today, and this time it was actually kinda helpful.

Remember that the world used to be filled with feudalistic absolute-monarchist nations where the Emerperor/King always got away with doing immoral shit, and most people who worked for the monarch can fuck up your life with zero repercussions.

Today, at least sometimes the leaders can get punished.

South Korea just Impeached their president. And the president will likely get convicted and removed from office and go to prison, just as with one of the presidents before.

Brazil is now investigating their former President for an attempted coup.

The US isn’t there yet, but at least we tried. Eventually, the president will be held accountable, maybe not in 10 years, but eventually we’ll evolve out of this shit. The US had slavery, and got rid of it (for the most part). We had Jim Crow and got rid of that. It used to be only white male landowners could vote, and eventually Black Men, then Women, also got the right to vote. Progress happens even if it looks very slow.

Back then there was also no modern medicine, a small flu can kill you. If a family had 2 children in any country that’s even slightly developed, both children likely survive. But before modern medicine, you need like 8 children and maybe 2 of them will survive.

Back then there were no entertainment on demand, if you are bored, you are just bored. Now we can just go on Youtube, Netflix or whatever and have a billion things to watch.

Back then, you didn’t have a 40 hour work week, you were on a farm and had to constantly work. Any bad weather and crops died you’re starving. Or if it post industrial revolution, you could be at a factory with way longer hours and much worse conditions than today.

People think “this is so bad” but it was way worse before.

I chose not to participate.

I joined the military as soon as I graduated high school, got a solid 20 years of free food, free shelter, free college education, free travel, and plenty of life skills/experiences, all while collecting a solid income. Then I retired at 38 years old, collected a pension and a 100% VA disability check for the rest of my life (which includes free medical/dental for life), and inherited my childhood home in the countryside when my father passed away this year.

I do what I can to help out my local community, but I’m not working and have no need to contribute to capitalism. I make my own schedule each day, do whatever hobbies/goals I have the energy for, then call it a day whenever and start again the next morning.

My wife gets the same VA benefits, although she didn’t serve long enough to collect a pension; she was medically discharged. So we’re both just enjoying a quiet life in the countryside, no jobs, just focused on whatever makes us happy each day.

This is the life everyone deserves to have, and I’m upset that capitalism is basically the opposite of this lifestyle. They preach that if you’re not working, you’re a drain on society. Because the fewer workers they have, the less money that’s generated for the rich elites running the capitalist regime. That’s why our retirement age keeps going up. The longer people live, the more time they have to be productive members of “society” (read: capitalism). No thanks; I retired at 38 and I’m happy enjoying my youth while I still have some semblance of it.

EDIT: I just want to point out that military life was basically democratic socialism, with all our needs met, the govt ensuring we had food and a home, education was free, most all work-related expenses paid for. (uniforms, travel, etc.) Our paycheck was basically just spending money for us. We didn’t have to worry about covering bills because we received a separate “allowance” to cover rent/mortgage and utilities. Food was another allowance on top of our paycheck. If we were reassigned to another base somewhere in the world, the govt would foot the bill for movers and they packed your house for you. And you basically had to break the law to be kicked out of the military, so job security was excellent. We all got paid based on our rank and time in service, so it didn’t matter if you were a geothermal physicist or just handing out towels at the gym; everyone got the same wage across the board. It was an ideal situation. You’ll be hard pressed to find something similar in the rest of America.

Butt stuff

I submit to it while kindling a fire inside. For the rest of the day escapism. Everyone is just doing escapism.

Smoke a lot of weed

So I went through a very dark place a few years back. Anxiety, depression and PTSD led me to the conclusion that “life is hard and always will be and that in the whole of human history we are all insignificant”.

But with the help of a great therapist (and some meds) I was able to append “so I might as well have fun”.

So I try to find joy wherever I can. So yes to doing things, fight my cynical side, make friends, dress weird, dance, party, be my (weird fun happy) self, allocate zero fucks to the haters and all to love to the people that matter.

I still fight the system where I can, but mostly by trying to make other’s lives happier. Let the billionaires be rich miserable assholes, we’re too busy dancing slutty to care.

Reading history books for greater context. Shit always finds a new flavor of fucked, apparently.

And drinking a boatload.

Preparing myself for the world Titor predicted. Small communities.

Learning to homestead as best I can as a renter. Lots of raised beds and planter bags.

I only buy things to support my hobbies. Saving up for land and a prefab home so I can go completely independent.

I don’t want to worry if critical food gets expensive again.

Currently taking a sabbatical from giving a shit about anything.

Got assaulted, seriously injured, car got stolen, lost my job working at a non profit helping the homeless, became homeless, spent a year that way, racked up a whole bunch more injuries.

Managed to qualify for SSDI, got on a bus, rode halfway across the country in horrible agony to find a shithole I can afford to rent, with just the clothes I had on me.

Its been about a year now, doing my own physical therapy, slowly recovering.

Can’t afford actual physical therapy, couldn’t get to it anyway.

Maybe sometime next year I’ll be able to get my glasses replaced.

Maybe if I get to the point I can walk or use my wrist for more than 10 minutes at a time I’ll look into some kind of remote work… or just make a video game or something.

…

How do I deal with it?

Just keep living, one day at a time.