Experiencing societal collapse is wild yo
Like, I wake up and see my flowers. Some bees. It's a nice sunrise. I open the news and it's just one big collapse of the west. Fascism is rapidly coming up. I'm in the middle of it but I still need to go to work to keep the make believe that is our society going. War might be imminent. Whether that's with Russia or the US.
And yet here we are, collectively pretending everything is fine.
but I still need to go to work to keep the make believe that is our society going
The absurdity of it all is this. I hear people at work talking about the future and things like nothing is happening in the broader world. If I bring it up I look like a crazy person though.
We've been individualized and unorganized by capitalism for so long and there is no outlet for unorganized people to do anything in response to the collapse. I feel like people are either in denial or just too afraid too admit it.
This is the hardest part of my work day. Showing up against my will, to sit in a cesspool and listen to the most detached people in the world talk about their 5 year plans.
Yeah, I'm in amerikka rn and honestly it's just wierd and really anxiety inducing.
I just really don't want to die. I really just wanted a good job and people who care about me, and now I've got to worry about all of this.
Prices are rising and it feels like something big is coming but I've got to just keep going to classes as usual. I was talking to my advisor a few weeks ago about my plan for the rest of my degree which won't be done until 2027/28.
I guess I never really considered what life during wartime actually looks like. Is there even a point worrying? What if the conflict goes nuclear and there's no hope of recovery? I just don't want to have wasted my life
Idk about you but for me a lot of the stress was because i didn't know what i would do. So i figured it out.
If i woke up tomorrow and WW3 had started, supply chains had collapsed, etc. I'd grab my handheld radio, 20$ Baofeng UV-5RM, listen to a few emergency info channels, and figure out whats going on around me best i can. Then I'd grab my backpack i keep with some basic supplies in it. Change of clothes, water filter, first aid kit, knife, etc. Throw some food in there, and go.
I have Organic Maps downloaded with maps for my area within a few hundred miles, and ive studied up on the local geography enough to know how to get away from people. I'd get out into the woods, and setup a little camp. i have a ultralight hammock that can be slung between two trees, and a rain cover for it to sleep in. With the food id bring and water filters i could stay out there probably a week or 2 without needing to leave. I'd listen to the radio(have a solar charger to keep it powered), keep myself informed on whats going on, and wait out the initial panic. Once things settled down a bit I'd go look for a more permanent place to setup. Maybe an abandoned house or something.
It might not be much, and isnt by any means guaranteed to keep me alive. It does make things easier though. I won't be taken by surprise if something does happen, and i can stop stressing so much about it now. A lot of the prep i did was free, and the rest is very affordable. I'm broke af and managed to do it. Altho with tariffs some things will be not so cheap soon. Even just having a plan brings a ton of peace of mind tho.
As for wasting your life, don't waste it then. Do things that make you happy. Go outside, and look at the sky. Pet a cat. Whatever. The world could end tomorrow or we could get hit by a bus tomorrow. Plan for the future sure, but don't live for the future. Enjoy life now.
The world wars only lasted 4-6 or so years, you might live some of your life in wartime, but most of it will be spent afterwards, after the fascists have lost once again. Things seemed pretty bleak during ww2, but things got better afterwards. Plan for the part afterwards.
I personally believe that people are way over predicting how fast things will progress. We’ve been on this path for a very long time and historically it is incredibly slow in progression. I just don’t think we are going to see mass change say anything even within 10 years. Fundamentally Trump’s policies just truly aren’t that different from what came before. That’s not to say the collapse isn’t happening, because it is, I just feel like there are many overzealous estimates as to when we will see the final end days of capitalism and the current order.
I love going to therapy each week and talking about my problems like where I live, the US, is a stable, sustainable system that I just need to find my place in. I just keep trying to work at things I can work on cause what else can ya do. I figure there are always going to be people who are in big denial about these things and to be fair to them, panicking doesn't help and maybe it's possible the disruption wouldn't be too bad before the west is able to grapple with problems and transition to something else. But also, like, I think it can be genuinely paralyzing for the average person to think about, when considering the lack of community ties and support that is common here; or they go for some individualistic "prepper" mindset as a response to the fears. And people can end up hating their neighbor over something as asinine as who they voted for in an elected largely controlled by capitalists (like without even knowing what the person truly believes), so that makes it even harder to have community.
Edit: wording
It's like that comic "best I can do is drugs to trick your mind into thinking it's alright"
It really does feel like that sometimes, even though I'm not doing a psychiatrist thing with meds. Psychological mental gymnastics equivalent or something like that.
It doesn't feel much better in the East. This is global, the rot just smells more in the West.
I'm curious now where you most have in mind in the East. Or if you just mean the general issue of global capital and imperialism strangling a lot of the world.
I mean the general failure of capitalist idealogues, and imperialists destroying their own countries. I'm not great with detailed evidence, but Chinese abandonment of their working class, focusing on export production instead of domestic support - rich get richer and corruption grows. Indian divisive and racist politics, Russian imperialist destruction of their domestic economy to chase the dream of a king, South Korean cultism.
The world is a funky place with people really not feeling like they belong.
Not even gonna start on the mess that is the middle east, as that has been burning for a hundred years.
I agree, keep seeing a lot of concerning things in the news. I read something about the Danish military buying a lot of missiles from France. And Denmark already has a pretty big military for a country of their size... I feel like people aren't making enough of a fuss about these developments
They can’t make a fuss about things that they don’t know about or refuse to acknowledge.
Most of the people around me just don’t yet believe that the decline is happening as rapidly as it is. Outside of egg prices and now the cost of the new Nintendo games, most people are completely ignorant.
Well there is at least a slight chance the Danish missiles will be pointing towards the Burger Regime.
My boomer parents are so worried about me investing in weird and risky stocks, like my retirement matters when the entire financial system is going to be ash in less than a decade. "I better max my 401k so that I can watch is not exist soon. "
I'm not so sure you can call a regime based on epxloitation of the majority of the world a "society", that's at most just a well disguised machine of exploitation, or much less that we are experiencing a societal collapse, as the actual society is now getting more room to grow from the deepening contradictions of capitalism.
I ain’t planning on participating in any type of world war if I can avoid it, but I will absolutely go to war against a US invasion.
Our cat is looking out the window at nature, too. He doesn’t follow the news, I don’t have the heart to break it to him.