Is it just me or do a lot of people in our/my generation use the whole... "the world is fucked, everythings terrible, nothing will ever get better, and we'll all burn alive in the climate crisis or die by nuclear bomb" mentality as, well, a cop-out to avoid thinking about their futures?
Girl you are not dying tragically young as a victim of societal collapse. Start taking your education seriously, make a long-term plan for how you want to achieve your personal, financial, and career goals with realistic expectations, and research different types of retirement funds 💀 "late-stage capitalism" is not going to kidnap you in the night and take away all your power over the scary things in life to turn you into a passive victim of circumstance any time soon
"But this time its different!" Its really not. The Cuban missile crisis almost had the world blow up, and it didn't. The cold war that set the stage for it existed in a constant state of the threat of nuclear annihilation.
Our world map today looks completely different from how it looked a thousand years ago. Nations and empires have risen and collapsed. Wars have been waged over petty bullshit that changed names and borders. Empires that were once thought invincible and perpetual crumbled to dust within a peasant's lifetime as they tilled their fields and worried about crop failure. The invention of flight, motion pictures, and the automobile chased the coattails of WWI and the great depression. Children played mischief games and elders complained about kids these days being too soft and sensitive during the fall of the Roman empire.
Our generational struggles are not uniquely terrible compared to any other generation's. Your life will not come to a dramatic and cinematic end to all of humanity and the world as we know it any time soon. The world will change and evolve as it always has throughout all of history and all of its constant perpetual bullshit, and you will continue to live on regardless of the outcome. Yes, even if you're queer. Yes, even if you're trans. Yes, even if you're neurodivergent. Yes, even if you're racialized. Set up your 401k and find ways to guard against becoming senile not if, but when you grow old.
My mother is going to be 63 years old this year. She was born in 1963. She lived most of her life under the threat of the world ending.
I know this, because when I was nineteen and despairing I broke down crying in her arms one day, and I asked her what the point was. Why carry on, when there’s so much wrong in the world? Why keep going, keep trying, when it feels like every battle is insurmountable, and that even when, by some miracle, you win, you don’t get to rest, you just get to fight again? What’s the point, when everything just gets worse all the time?
And she told me, yes, it’s hard. I never thought I’d be forty, let alone fifty. I never thought I’d see retirement. I thought the world would have ended by now. And I thought I had two choices. I could spend whatever time I had despairing, or I could choose to live, in whatever time I had. So I fought, and I lost more battles than I won. But I’ve been happy, too. I’ve had two careers, two children, and a husband I love. I’ve had friends and adventures. I’ve seen the pyramids the coliseum and the place where two oceans meet. I’ve lived. And it was worth it. It’ll be worth it for you, too.
And I thought about that, and what I know about my mum — and you need to know, my mum is cool. She is. She’s a stone cold badass — she protested Thatcher. She went to Pride when it was still a riot because she understood the solidarity even if she didn’t understand the people she was marching with. She went door to door for the Brexit remain campaign.
And, sure. We left the EU. But when she had a daughter who turned out to be a son she showed up for me every time. She toasted Thatcher’s death with a glass of milk and stayed up late telling me stories of her protesting days.
She retired three years ago. She’s in France right now, sending me pictures of hikes she’s taking with my father, and the patisserie she’s going to eat after.
She lived, and it was worth it. It’ll be worth it for us, too.
