Welcome Back My Friends
To the show that never ends, until it does
The world is charging ahead.
The muddled and the mindless are scampering about as though there were somewhere to go.
There are new sub-divisions all down Interstate 5, there are new office buildings going up everywhere, L.A. is constructing a new light rail line to connect the San Fernando Valley with somewhere else.
It reminds me of stories that I have read about the 1890s, the Gilded Age, when “progress” was defined as moving forward and building the future. We were on the rise.
The “progress” was, of course, a hell-bent charge to destroy everything in its path for the sake of economic growth, and damn the consequences.
And now the consequences have come home to roost.
The cows have come home.
Hell has its handbasket packed and ready to go.
And no one need worry any longer about going to hell because, we’re living in it.
I do have a few questions though.
At what point do we stop paying our rent or mortgage?
When is the right time to default on our credit cards?
Will there be a moment when the answers to those questions becomes clear?
And most importantly, why are there interstate highways in Hawaii?
Chipping away at everything that we currently accept as normal has ended, we’re now in the full-on wrecking ball and bulldozer phase.
Most of the people that I interact with appear to understand that there are forces at work that will bring this set of living arrangements to an end, and most of them have blocked out the idea of that end ever happening.
Although the descriptor, doomer has fallen into disfavor I still like it, and I’m glad that I learned to cope with a lot of the psychological ramifications earlier on.
I have a hard time imagining what it would be like to believe there is going to be a future.
I just moved 450 miles to start a new job, my first regular job in almost 40 years, I’m okay with it, but I think that the people I work for are going to be taken by surprise.
If, and I wouldn’t be shocked if it is sooner rather than later, the doors close, I’ll just grab my coat, and grab my hat, and make it home in seconds flat.
I had, recently, began to experience some anxiety about how fast the deterioration was moving, but now I’ve regained the calm I used to have after my first bout with the stages of grief.
It’s going to bad, and ugly and violent and a lot of people as well as other creatures that we share the planet with are going to suffer horribly.
I will mourn their passing as I mourn the loss of all the friends and family that I lost because of continuing to take Covid precautions.
It used to hurt a lot more, but it doesn’t anymore, just like collapse used to hurt, but it doesn’t anymore.
Our race is run, and the end of the world is coming but I’m kind of okay with it.
As a fellow "Doomer", I can relate to your story -I'm in your age bracket. Remember charging around during the late 20th century with youthful, idealistic zeal, ready to move mountains in an ideological fervor. Coming to grips with declining physical prowess, approaching old age and the overall meaninglessness of the struggle for existence. Sadly realizing that nothing has changed here in Murka and that circumstances are becoming increasingly dire for me and my fellow citizens as the capitalistic dictatorship we live in begins to flail about and self destruct. Trying not to be subsumed with existential dread and morose sorrow about the ultimate culmination of my short, simple existence. Hopefully the end will be quick and painless; it's the sudden blow out of self sufficient ability to care for myself that I fear the most. The "health system" in this benighted country is very cruel to its old, poor and helpless victims.
R.E.M. - It’s the End of the World as We Know It (and I Feel Fine).