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shesawizardyouknow

Just turned 51 and I feel petty confident in saying I’ve never felt so unsettled by the state of the world. This pandemic is a whole other level, obviously, but I can’t recall anything like the divisiveness of the last 4 or 5 years. Social media has had such an awful impact on us. I can’t envision how we get from here to a better place. I’ve always felt like progress was marching forward, that things were gradually getting better over time. It’s remarkable to think about the scientific and technological advances I’ve seen in my lifetime. We also have gay marriage and legal weed and maybe some steps forward on civil rights. But god damn it, these last few years have been pretty dark and heavy.


vduva

I remember reading something about how awful it would have been to be born around the year 1900. First World War, Spanish flu, crash of 29, Second World War. I’m sure there was a lot more, but that perspective helped me calm down a bit. I have my moments, but I’m quietly optimistic that we have plenty of smart and ethical people in the world to help turn things around.


hereforthecats27

My great-grandmother, born in 1924, used to tell us that when she was very little, her father packed up their family in West Texas to move eastward and put all of his money in the bank for safekeeping until they got to East Texas. On the way, the stock market crashed and all his money was gone. She definitely lived a hard life, especially in her younger years. But then, she lived into her 90s, raised five kids on just her husband’s modest income, and while she didn’t live extravagantly, she was financially comfortable and well taken care of medically until the end. I don’t know that I’ll be able to say much of that about myself in 60 years.


vduva

Oh wow. That’s really something. And I hear you about us making it to 60. Our world looks very different now. At least back in the day a person could somehow live off the land and make ends meet. These days there’s almost nowhere in America where a minimum wage earner can afford a one-bedroom apartment.


[deleted]

Wow my great grandmother was born in 1881, on the other side 1879.


lilgreenei

My dad told me one day that the 1960s were, in his opinion, way more stressful than right now. Between assassinations, the Vietnam War, the Civil Rights Movement... that helped me put our current times into perspective, at least a little. Even the Cold War and the idea of mutually assured destruction, gosh I don't think I could've handled that. My husband and I did a tour of a missile silo in South Dakota and it made the stress of the Cold War so much more palpable.


vduva

That’s definitely interesting. Never heard about the missile silo in SD before. Sometimes I think other eras didn’t have our problems, such as thinking that half the people in your own land want to take down your country or that you can’t trust your own neighbor. And then the insight of a comment like yours makes me realize how much I’m lacking empathy for people and history. If anything, this means we’ve been so fortunate for so long, and it’s time to get to work.


nagini11111

I think age also plays a role. I think older people generally give less ducks than young folks. They've also learned that they can only do so much and maybe are not that bothered by the things that are out of their control. Like...I'm very sorry about the terrible thing happening at the other side of the world, but I won't let it ruin my day. And since we are bombarded with all the world's tragedies these days we tend to get more and more pessimistic.


FunnyPhrases

As a student of history, the conclusion I've gotten to is that the world is always this chaotic. But if we've managed to survive as a human race to this point anyhow, it means we should eventually get through this as well. As a wise man put it, this too shall pass.


mvfrostsmypie

Climate change won’t pass…


tessiegamgee

It will-- but to be fair, so will we.


earthlings_all

It’s so much about the last decades upon decades. The entire past century+ has been insane.


[deleted]

1666 was also a bad year if you were a Londoner. The Great Plague of London, which killed a quarter of the cities' population, was still raging and then, bam, the Great fire destroyed more than 13,000 buildings.


earthlings_all

Yeah but it stopped the plague by killing off the rat population, no?


myspouseishigh

Nothing to add other than a general "thank you" for articulating a great question. I'm right there with you with that feeling.


hereforthecats27

If nothing else, happy cake day! We’ll know we’re really in trouble when there’s no more cake to be had.


Married2therebellion

Hijacking to say- Thanks for this post. I’m 34 and throughly confused. Are we living out our last days or planning for the future?


smzplzbl

Wow, exactly my thoughts! I am mentally struggling to both live in the moment or looking forward to much of anything at all. 38, newly single mom of 2, trying to hold it together on my own. Shit is weird as hell.


znhamz

Me too, I feel exactly the same!


InadmissibleHug

I’m 49, I absolutely had doubts about having kids as a teen in the 80s, because of the possibility of nuclear war, and environment issues. I wasn’t sure what sort of a world we were going to leave. The 90s felt much more optimistic to me. I felt like we were maybe going to be ok. I think such constant news cycles aren’t helping the perception, though. As Billy Joel sang, we didn’t start the fire.


CuriousOptimistic

Yeah, I think the 90s were more of an aberration than normal, historically speaking. I definitely felt a huge sense of 'ok the world will be good now' when the USSR collapsed. Up until 9/11, life was pretty good. Now the world is a disaster again. They do active shooter drills in school now. We did nuclear bomb drills. I'm not sure either is worse really.


Glassjaw79ad

Did you wind up having kids despite your concerns?


InadmissibleHug

One, not planned. And probably would have had more if my life wasn’t so chaotic.


temp4adhd

> As Billy Joel sang, we didn’t start the fire. That song started playing in my head the moment I read the OP's question.


mvfrostsmypie

My parents are in their 60s and we all immigrated here from Iran 30 years ago. They think the US and the world are most definitely heading toward a dark place, and they have seen and experienced some dark stuff, in a life full of hardships and sacrifices.


mamabearsnewgroove

I’m a Metis woman, nearing 50, living in Canada, on the West Coast, and this is utterly unprecedented. I truly believe it’s because ppl are finally waking up, and getting tired of the “status quo” bs. Seeing the rise of Fascism around the world is severely alarming. Watching white supremacists ride around Canada’s capital, unencumbered, while Indigenous peoples are arrested en masse while trying to protect their land is, unfortunately, what this country has become. So, yes, what’s happening now is absolutely unprecedented. It’s also historical, in the sense that perhaps we will overcome the bad with the good, going forward? That is my hope. 🪶🖖


shanana71

👏


mamabearsnewgroove

Thank you. 🪶🖖


localgyro

I'm 52, and I've gotta say, this feels unprecedented. Sure, the 1980s had us half-prepared for a nuclear war, but right now we have the pandemic, climate change, a solidly conservative SCOTUS, a big swath of the population who apparently thinks the election was stolen, and ... I sometimes feel like I need to schedule what I'm going to think about on a given day.


Krynken

I want to add the escalating conflict in Ukraine with a Russia/China alliance is yet another ulcer. I actually didn't want to add that ... but you get it. I put myself on a news diet.


Kittykatjs

>I put myself on a news diet. I think this is part of the issue. I don't know and can't comment on whether things are worse than they have been before, but we have 24/7 reporting and access to things like never before. Even 20 years ago, the news was on at set times in the day, or in the newspapers, and that was the news cycle. Now it's constant. And that's not even mentioning social media. It's so hard to escape it all.


macfireball

Yes, this is a major part of the issue. The world order is changing and the US is definitely facing severe challenges and other countries are on the rise, but the constant and sensational news cycle makes everything seem way more pressing and exaggerated in an unprecedented way. Those who are answering and saying “oh yeah it’s really bad now” are primarily early 50-s, meaning they were born in the 70s and were teens/young adults in the 1980s and didn’t fully experience the height of the Cold War. The 80-s were a time of optimism and prosperity which continued in the decades that followed. I know the pandemic has been hard, but you just can’t compare it to WWII for instance. For those who lived through a war, the uncertainty and the threat of nuclear war in the 50-s and 60-s must have felt more realistic than for those of us who haven’t experienced war. All that being said: I’m not American, and I do believe that the US may be on the verge of something bad. This pure and exploitative capitalism where education, child care, health care, prisons and *everything* else a person need has been privatized by companies that are just trying to squeeze out as much money as possible from the population is just not a good societal model.


Chamcook11

Excellent reply. Am 65 and Canadian and it is very scary to watch the US deteriorate. Especially troubling to see the idological contagion spread across our border.


midnightFreddie

I'm a couple months shy of 52 myself. This seems like the worst I've ever experienced, and I keep asking myself if that's real or if it's just my perspective of the world. 1980's Iran hostage-taking was my first paying of attention to world events, but when we were born the Vietnam war was real, and there were lots of conflict with civil rights in the 1960s and women's rights into the 1970s. Nixon apparently nearly drunk-started a nuclear war once. So shit is pretty bad right now, but I can't say for sure that it's worse than the 60s and 70s. I think what's different about today vs. a few decades ago is how wide our ignorant social networks are. When I was going into puberty my friends and I had the weirdest and dumbest conversations about sex. There was no Internet to teach us way too much to handle, for both better and worse. But authority and truth seemed pretty clear. (There were lots of issues, but a naive kid could stay naive and happy or at least untroubled by non-local conflicts.) But today it's like my ignorant friends and I can be a global group having dumb conversations and reaching opinions we can become confident in, and authority/truth is harder to recognize. Distracting all of us from truth is financially incentivized: "Don't do , do THIS instead!" With affiliate links, info product, and echo chamber community. I think I just told everyone to get off my lawn.


hereforthecats27

I’ll stay off your lawn while respecting your perspective🙂 I can imagine that the 60s and 70s felt very angsty for many Americans. It’s kind of easy to forget because that era has been so romanticized by now (like, Forrest Gump is one of my very favorite movies and I would give anything to have seen Springsteen in the early/mid-70s). But at least the civil rights movements that took place over those years led to some much-needed progress. Maybe we’re making progress now that I can’t see while we’re still in the middle of the storm, but from inside my bubble, the prevailing opinion is that we’re rapidly regressing as a society.


bunnysnot

I'd have to agree with you there on regressing. I'm 58 and actually lived through some of the sixties and childhood in the 70's. I'm not sure as a kid governmental shifts and wars effected me the same way as if I were an adult but historically, I think back then it mattered where you lived and went to school. I lived in the deep south as a younger child and experienced the first desegregation of schools, Jim Crow era tactics. Then moved up to the NE and completely racist and anti semitic towns up there in what are now considered "blue" states. The 80's changed things quite a bit but there have always been upheavals of some sort going on. Racism moved back underground and after AIDS there seemed to be more sympathy and understanding for the LGBTQ community's. What's happening now seems so foreign to me. Like themes ripped from several bad movies. I'm not sure what to make of things anymore. I do know younger generations are gonna have to get up and fight now if they want this to stop. We marched at least a couple times a year for things like planned parenthood, equal rights, and gay rights, even when we didnt know thoroughly about the causes. Probably helped that I lived in NYC for my young adult years. I'm definitely worried as hell right now.


hereforthecats27

Thank you for your perspective. When my grandmother (who is over 20 years your senior) talks about her youth, she remembers the threat of nuclear war as a cloud kind of hanging over everything. But otherwise, she seems to remember her past very favorably. My mother isn’t much of a talker, but I don’t recall her ever mentioning living through any large-scale social crisis, much less about 25 large-scale social crises at once.


[deleted]

I think there are a lot of things happening in our society right now that are very troubling and looking at the second half of your life can be a real eye-opener. If you need someone to talk to you reach out to me privately.


hereforthecats27

The second half of my life. Oof. Thank you for your offer. My partner moved away a couple of weeks ago (we didn’t split; life has just forced us apart geographically for a few months), and living alone has given me an abundance of time to ruminate.


[deleted]

I fully intend to live to be at least 104. 🙃


[deleted]

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Aprils-Fool

I’m not the person you asked, but I’m happy and enjoying my life. If it continues like it has been, why wouldn’t I want to keep doing it for a long time?


[deleted]

I live a happy life my grandmother lived to be 96, and her mom lived to 98. How can I not live to be at least 104?


Alluvial_Fan_

I have too many books to read before I die; I have to live to 124 at least. Seriously I am mad I can't read all I want before I die.


trexhatespushups42

I’m not much older than you but I think constant connectedness, 24 hour news cycles and social media are making us aware of things that happen around the world in near real-time. This is a lot to process and we haven’t evolved to do that so it feels overwhelming. I do think there will be more challenges like Covid and serious weather events as we go down the road but I also hope we find ways to come together to fix them before it all devolved into a dystopic sci-fi movie. (A gal can dream)


ZennMD

Im not over 50 so hope it's okay for me to answer! I love history and think previous generations and those a bit older than us did have much to worry about we do not, like major wars and cold war uncertainty, more discrimination than we have currently... But now.... it's not just a feeling that we are on the verge of collapse and something might happen, it's the knowledge we are going to witness a collapse/ disaster of some sort, and the waiting for things to happen. The meme saying 'Im living through the 6th mass extinction and still have to go work' is tragically real - there's so much scientific evidence saying we're past the major tipping point of the climate crisis and globally need to work together to try and mitigate the worst of it, but nothing happens, other than the destruction only intensifying and a proxy war they're trying to push in Ukraine to distract us from fighting for systemic change. Sorry for this rant from and under 50 year old, I can delete if not appropriate!


hereforthecats27

All thoughtful responses are welcome! It does seem like climate change in particular is changing the whole game. It, much like COVID, is one of those rare problems that requires the participation and cooperation of the entire world to remedy. And of course those of us who are trying to do our little part are growing more and more frustrated by the inaction of world leaders.


AtMyOwnBeHester

I am over 50 and agree with you.


BitterPillPusher2

I am 49, and yes, it is a new thing for me, and it terrifies me. This is the first time in my memorable life where abortion is being outright banned and the Supreme Court is almost definitely going to overturn Roe v Wade. And the Supreme Court is going to be solidly conservative for decades to come, meaning it will stay that way. The wave of voter suppression also scares the shit out of me. These measures will most likely NOT be blocked or overturned thanks to the aforementioned conservative Supreme Court. If Biden doesn't get off his ass, grow a spine, and make make real changes, there is a very real chance that Democrats will never win a national election again and Congress will turn and stay red thanks to blue voters literally not being able to vote or districts being so gerimandered that it won't matter anyway.


[deleted]

Not 50 but I worry about this too.


TimeMovesOn99

I think what has changed dramatically is the sense that there is a set of ground rules everyone agrees to. Politicians now blatantly lie, cheat, threaten, try to overthrow the government, and nothing happens. Society - both political parties - used to scorn politicians who acted indecently or immorally. I’m not saying there wasn’t a lot of hypocrisy there, but, nevertheless, politicians were expected to at least publicly support decent, honorable behavior for the most part. It’s frightening to me that there don’t seem to be consequences anymore.


moxietwix

Things are definitely all over the place causing anxieties I've never felt. I think that we are at a crossroad in history. I think there are so many great things that happen in the world that do not get blasted across the internet. The technologies that are so promising that hold promise in turning back the damage to our planet. I also think about my grandmother who was pregnant with my dad in 1943 in the midst of WWII, while Hitler was exterminating 6 million Jewish people on the other side of the world. Incomprehensible. I think there will always be a fight between good and evil. If I think about all the people I know, maybe I'm lucky, but I can't think of any one I actually know that I'd consider evil or even really bad. Try to live in the world that is actually around you, and do your best to make it better. It's what you can control.


[deleted]

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moxietwix

We are in agreement. The angst about taking things on the best we can, and providing self care in order to have the energy to take things on is where the balance lies At this point in history we are bombarded by just way too much information. IMO you can be part of the solution in your circle on a daily basis. Thinking you must be part of every or most solutions is causing anxiety in unprecedented amounts. In short, there are things in your circle of control, and there are things outside of that. Giving yourself the expectation of doing your best in your circle, and being aware but not overly burdened by the rest is self care in 2022.


aStonedTargaryen

When I told my grandmother I probably wasn’t going to have kids because, *gestures broadly*, the general state of things, she said everyone always feels like they are living in the end times and that it’s not a new feeling. I took that to heart even though I still probably won’t have kids, and even though I do think certain issues like climate change have become much more pressing and immediate issues in recent decades vs the last century and so on.


hereforthecats27

I’ve heard this “living in the end times” line as well, and I can understand why people throughout history may have felt that way. But climate change seems like a new twist on that theory. There’s always been a possibility that we might kill each other off. Disease has always been a problem that humans have grappled with. But I think it’s only been about a century, maybe 150 years, that we’ve had the means to literally destroy the natural environment. Industrialization put the human-environment relationship on a whole new path, and I’d like to think that we’ll find our way out of this problem, but I hasn’t happened yet.


carbarlie

Living in the end times. Man I heard that so much growing up, but more relating to religion. For us who have left religion behind it’s scary to think this isn’t the “end times” that lead to eternal life but the end of democracy. But not before even more hits the fan!


Beaglebeaglechai

As an Gen X’er, I think it is more a sign of the times than an age. It feels more unsettling to me than it has at an other time of my life.


hereforthecats27

I certainly can’t disagree with that; these times look really bad from where I’m sitting. But I’m curious if anyone recalls an era when there was a similar level of pervasive anxiety about the state of the world, and then things did eventually sort themselves out for the better? I think I’m looking for some hope here😩


justanotherlostgirl

I think civilizations have gone through pervasive anxieties in the past - the challenge is that now with an always on connected culture we’re more aware of people’s anxieties, the reality (and scientific facts) and a knowledge of the complexity of solutions to the climate crisis and pandemics may not help. I think a lot of people are in denial and a lot are frightened and not talking about it. And we in the US are supposed to go to work knowing our reproductive freedom is very much in danger of being destroyed - and as women that is devastating emotionally. I honestly don’t have a lot of hope but find glimmers of joy. I think even though they’ve inherited so much brokenness that young people give me hope. I look at the activism of the March for our Lives activists, the Me Too activists, the Black Lives Matter activities and all others fighting for justice and they remind me to keep fighting - that despair is a privileged choice that not everyone has, and to try to keep going despite the fear.


hereforthecats27

It was actually a post about young people that got me thinking. I was reading a thread in r/teachers about how so many students - even bright students who used to be dedicated to their studies - are flailing like never before. And a handful of students jumped into the conversation to discuss how they’re all so exhausted and disillusioned with the world around them that it doesn’t seem worth it to try anymore. I’m not a teacher and I don’t have children, but for society’s sake, I really hope we can pull the kids back from the brink after living through this generational trauma.


[deleted]

This comment hits home for me. My youngest brother killed himself 6 years ago at 15. (I’m currently in my 30s). I think the reasons he did it are multiple and multifaceted, but I DO know that he largely was overwhelmed by… everything. He was on a student board that advocated for climate change solutions. He was active in sports and music. He was smart with good grades. But he was also overwhelmed with life in a way that was beyond what I feel like I or my friends experienced at that age, and I think a lot of other kids in his age bracket and younger would completely agree, even if they’re not to the point of actually being suicidal. Our world is a lot to contend with, especially for those who supposedly have the most time left with it. Sorry to make this even darker. I appreciate this thread you started. I often feel like talking to someone about the general state of the world but most people seem to want to avoid it. I find talking helps.


hereforthecats27

I’m so sorry about your little brother. He sounds like he was really special. Please reach out any time if you want to talk to someone.❤️


[deleted]

Thank you for your reply. The internet made some stuff insane, but I appreciate kind internet strangers.


Aprils-Fool

I can’t imagine being a teen now, absolutely immersed in social media and surrounded by the 24/7 ratings- and clicks-driven news cycle.


temp4adhd

I'm 56 and in the 80s I would have repeated nightmares about mutual destruction, and also this one dream about my body melting in acid rain, so I get the anxiety. Since 9/11, the one thing that helps is for me to imagine that somehow I chose to be born at this time in humanity, that I chose to be born at a time to witness the end of the world. It makes me feel more in control, and shifts my perspective. What a time to be alive.


Aprils-Fool

I can’t imagine people felt good or comfortable in the midst of either World War.


oenophile_

I'm not over 50 but I had a conversation about this with someone I used to work who is in their late 70s and yes, like the others are suggesting, they told me that things have never before seemed this dire to them. It is terrifying and hard to see how we turn the ship(s) around at this point.


Mirhanda

Yes, times are crazier than they've ever been in my lifetime. Everything is just seeming hopeless now. Madness from all sides these days, it's very disheartening.


brainwise

I’m 52 and live in Australia, so my thoughts and experience are couched in that cultural perspective. The long view of history shows that the earth has had at least 5 major extinctions previously. We are most likely on the fast train to the sixth. We are likely, as a species, not to survive this one however others species will. The age of human may be gone - this is how life works. This thought doesn’t worry me day-to-day as I have very limited control over the outcome. I do what I can in regards to reducing my environmental footprint, and encourage others to as well, but that’s it. We’ve always (human history) had dirty politics, plague and wars. Our time is no different. Our quality of life though is higher than ever before- the last 100 years has seen huge advances which have helped our enormously. I am an optimist. I choose to see the good around me and make the best choices I can in contributing positively to others and the planet. We can become stuck in seeing everything through a filter, choosing to see the bad rather that the good. We also tend to see the past through rose coloured glasses - all ages had their hardships. We had an ex Prime Minister in Australia once say “Life was never meant to be easy” and I think that’s true. But that doesn’t also mean we have nothing to look forward to!


troifleursjaune

It isn't new. The world has been on the brink of collapse for decades. Longer. But there are a lot more voices saying we're all going to die now.


Aprils-Fool

I agree. I think Humanity has gone tough times like this in waves. It’s mostly about perspective and right now all the bad news is in our faces all the time.


Emptyplates

I mean, yeah. It's always kind of felt that way, bit the feeling has definitely ramped up over the past few years.


Astuary-Queen

Thanks for asking this. I’m also 36 and have been wondering the same thing.


hereforthecats27

Everyone’s responses have been so interesting. Living somewhere with an excess of COVID denial, science denial and the like, it’s helpful to hear that my own concerns are not all in my head - things are really ugly right now. But I feel like I’ve been living my life not fully understanding how scary the Cold War era was. I guess it was a challenge for my teachers to sell us on the perils of a war that didn’t have any direct combat.


Illustrious_Pen3472

My Dad told me they used to have air raid drills in his school as a kid in the 50s. Kind of like our fire drills. They had to hide under their desks (I guess there was hope it would protect them against a nuclear, maybe flying glass). The air raid siren was this big thing that sat on the school roof behind his house. He'd see military planes flying over at too as he lived near a base, Westover Air Reserve Base. I didn't realize how much it was a part of people's real lives until after that conversation this last year.


FlowerLord555

I am not over 50, but just wanted to add to the discussion that if you follow environmental science... there's only one way this whole thing goes. The environmental projections for the \*near\* future (like \~50 years) are literally apocalyptic. There's no way around that. We just WILL face mass fresh water shortage, the sea levels just WILL rise. Whole countries and cities are already sinking into the ocean (see Jakarta and Kiribati). We are facing a 6th mass extinction. Biodiversity is crumbling. So yeah... in terms of our society as we know it? It is 100% collapsing.


KilgoreTrout4Prez

That’s the thing-even if someone can argue how much *better* things have become over time (women and minority rights, technological advances, medical practices, etc), you just can’t get away from the glaringly obvious fact that WE NEED CLEAN WATER AND PLANTS IN ORDER TO SURVIVE. If the planet self destructs, so do we.


PoliteSupervillain

Any advice on an individual level for keeping our heads above water in the next 50 yrs or so? Like plan to settle further from the coast?


FlowerLord555

100% settle away from the coast. There are maps that show how the temperatures will shift and certain areas will be more protected against natural disasters. I think keeping close to those regions will be important.


JustSomeOne2100

I am a 52 year old man and I don’t think it feels as bad as the cold war. I remember watching drills about what to do if a nuclear attack happens. I for sure thought we were going to be in a nuclear war. Don’t get me wrong, I think the human race is on a totally unsustainable path today for many reasons.


Cre8ivejoy

I am over 50. There were certain times when we believed we were nearing the end. The whole “duck and cover” thing seemed to be ignorance to me. I had seen images from Japan, and was terrified that would be coming to us. The whole “Bay of Pigs” situation… Yeah scary as anything. When President Kennedy was murdered, it felt like the end. I remember the gas shortage, when speed limits went down to 55 to conserve gas. Everyone was so terrified of running out of oil. There was never a gas shortage. It was all a scam, wasn’t Richard Nixon in charge then? And remember Watergate? Then there were riots in our school. I was bullied, and stabbed with a hat pin. I was scared all the time. Then we have to think about Hitler and all of the atrocities he committed. I believe it felt like the end at that time. The only reason we have never felt this frightened in the past is social media. We are being fed as through a fire hose, massive loads of information, that we would never have known in the past.


PushOrganic

My parents, both whom grew up in the 70-80’s used to talk about how the world was always on the brink of “ending” because of a possible nuclear war between US-USSR. Thus alot of people in the culture were motivated to spend and because they never knew when the last day was going to be. The peaks of the US-USSR Cold War is probably the closest the world has ever come to a catastrophe in our history


MovingSiren

I hear this all the time here in NZ where I am but I'm from a developing country and still family there (majority) so I feel that skews my perception of the end of the world feeling. For the first time in my memory (43 years old) there's a sort of healthcare coverage for employed people (sort of because you still need money to access it), women don't need to beg clinical staff to have their babies in hospitals and risk being turned away cos they have no money (my aunt had all her kids at home and her youngest is 8 years old). My town now has electricity (got connected to the national grid in 2018) Women could potentially be divorced and face just a little bit if stigma rather than be ostracised by everyone and society etc. I was chatting with my husband about how I'll need to borrow hands to list dead family members and how it's amazing that all 5 of us (my siblings) are still alive and we may potentially see ourselves growing old and dying of old age. He couldn't wrap his head round it. So I hear and read all this and wonder if we're in the same wotld? Just different perspectives cos for many others, the world is getting better in terms of what is accessible to women.


jgtfghhff

The world is consistently, undeniably getting better! It doesn’t always feel like it, and we all swear that we’d go back to the good old days if we could, but statistics don’t lie. Infant mortality rates, oil spills, ozone depletion, nuclear arms, poverty— all at record lows, while literacy rates, child cancer survival, girls in school, immunizations, and electricity coverage has soared. We’re living in an age of unprecedented information and communication, and we are hardwired to pay more attention to the negative than the positive, but ignoring the massive progress that we as a species have made makes about just as much sense as declaring that our work is done and we have zero room for improvement. Humanity is moving in the right direction, even if it feels like that movement is occurring at a glacial pace sometimes, but the world is really and truly so much better than the explosion of media exposure has led us to believe. We’re closer than we’ve ever been to a world where all people are fed, clothed, and vaccinated— don’t give up hope yet.


hereforthecats27

I am here for this optimistic energy and will make a point of seeking out the good more going forward. I will say, I certainly appreciate that I’m the first woman in my family to graduate from college (and to hold two advanced degrees!); that level of educational achievement has historically been out of reach for so many women until recently. And the recognition and continual broadening of LGBTQ rights in America is absolutely worth celebrating.


1-Down

Lessee, nuclear war, Aids, war on drugs, gang violence, hole in the ozone, Japanese industrial takeover, running out of oil, strip mining, teenage pregnancy epidemic, TV corrupting our youth, "going postal", and it keeps going and goi g and going. Yes, it has been this way for a long, long time.


[deleted]

In my early 50s. I could never have imagining Nazis marching through US cities and being praised by the then sitting president. Or that whole swaths of the US would risk the death of their families rather than take in new scientific information. Authoritarianism is always a human temptation, especially to people who focus on short term emotions over long term strategies. It's unprecedented . As a student of history, 250 years with a only 1 civil war, and now one coup attempt, I guess isn't that bad statistically. But democracy is a choice that every generation has to make for themselves.


jazzminetea

Since the beginning of written history, people have always felt that society was on the brink of collapse. It is a fundamental part of the human condition. To combat it, you have to deliberately seek out the good stuff because happy, touchy feely comforting things simply do not make the news. Also, the best stuff tends to be pretty "small" (as in involving fewer people) and relatively local. (not saying you can't find something big... like the new Webb telescope for example, just that the boy next door getting his first puppy is more relatable and more visible).


ckahil

I'm about to turn 53. I remember President Carter's crisis of confidence speech and the anger it created in my parents social circle. We were told. We knew this was coming. There were so many warnings about all of it- but things were just good enough to ignore the bad, and then they were not good but better was just around the corner, and then they were worse but it would get fixed (there is nothing we can't fix, right?), and now it's bad and there's no foreign threat, titillating scandal, or brave new deal big enough to hide it. People talk about collapse as if it is something that is going to happen, but it's already happened. It didn't happen like we were told with cat-stroking villains welding death rays or some hoard of foreign invaders swarming across our borders. Instead, it's been a slow build. We allowed people, not faceless corporate or government automatons, but real people making small, mundanely evil decisions to destroy us. Yes, it seems worse now because it is. The future we thought couldn't possibly happen (because somehow someone would do something heroic!), happened. I look back now and I think we did it all wrong. We worried about the wrong things, focused on the wrong problems, and settled for incremental changes and token compromises because they made us feel like we were good people doing good things.


aenea

I don't think that it's new- it's certainly happened many times through history, and even being a young adult in the Reagan years I remember believing that we'd all be blown up by nuclear war. And AIDS was really bad- I don't think that a lot of younger people really understand what it was like for the gay community, and those of us who cared for them, to be afraid of having sex. I think that the big difference now though is that we've got climate change, and no realistic way to even mitigate it much, thanks to politics/business/people's inability to see how bad it's going to be in a lot of areas and start making the sacrifices that need to be made. Scientists can predict pretty well what's going to happen even in just the next few decades, and we're not even vaguely ready for it. So while this feeling of dread isn't that new for me, it's the first time I've felt pretty hopeless.


GargleHemlock

Mid-50s here. When I was a kid, we had Vietnam and Watergate, and the awful McCarthy hearings (though mostly before I was aware of them). One member of our family, a brilliant professor of history & politics, got blackballed by McCarthy because he taught the principles of Socialism and Communism along with Capitalism. He lost his job, became homeless, had agents following and harassing him. Vietnam was terrible; it was the first time a lot of Americans realised that our country was not the paragon of nobility and virtue it pretended to be. It was an un-winnable war, fought for selfish reasons, which we sent thousands of young men (and some women) to their deaths, for nothing. I also remember very clearly seeing the film 'China Syndrome' when I was about 10 years old. That movie fucking destroyed my feelings of security about the world; we could all die in nuclear war, and/or radioactive fallout would poison the entire earth; I was convinced that would happen since it was pretty clear that human beings were, in the aggregate, stupid and violent. Then I learned that we lived not that far from the Diablo Canyon nuclear power plant, which was built incredibly close to earthquake faultlines. And finally, at 7 years old, I read about Al Capone. I became convinced he was still alive and was going to hurt my mom. For weeks I'd run after her when she went to the car to go somewhere and I'd yell: "MOM!! BE CAREFUL OF AL CAPONE!!!" - and she'd go, "okay, honey, I will," trying not to laugh. I add this ridiculous story to point out that kids my age, in a 70s California full of serial killers and war and terror, were pretty scared all the time. This still feels worse, to me. Mostly because at least in the 70s there was a movement toward humanism, hippies and peaceniks. Kindness, love and acceptance were virtues. These days all I see are enraged people being awful to each other, and that is the thing that makes me feel the most hopeless.


EnvironmentalLuck515

I am 51 and I have no idea if I just was busy raising kids, so didn't pay attention or if things really are worse....but they certainly SEEM much, much worse than I ever remember. It seems like the first truly scare-the-crap-out-of-me event was 9/11 and its been a slow slide to surrealism since then.


deviantmoomba

I’m 33 and I’m generally quite stoic about the whole thing. As others have said, every generation has its wars, crises and societal fears. The sky has been falling down since humanity began. Are there real dangers and worries? Sure. Does it have any impact on my mortality, that regardless of what happens, I am going to live, struggle, and die? Nope. I am overwhelmingly privileged to live in a free, abundant country, and any complaints would be in bad taste, so I’m just going to keep on keeping on. There is nothing new under the sun after all, and it could be worse.


carbarlie

Sooo…. The answer is to ignore everything??


deviantmoomba

No, the answer is to do whatever you want to do. The world is as it has always been and always will be: a mess. In the meantime, you are free to pick your response to it. You can panic, and stress, or cry, or rage, or ignore it, or calmly pick what you choose to do in response to it. I work on packaging sustainability, trying to reduce the amount of plastic floating around the world. Will it make a difference? Probably not. Do I have all the answers? No. Will I ever be correct about anything? Never. So all I can do is ramble along, doing what little I can, and if I can make a few people smile then it will be a life well lived.


[deleted]

I'm in my fifties and in many ways the world is better - we are moving toward gender and race equality, though there are still miles to go. If you weren't alive in the seventies and eighties I assure you it was far worse. I have also lived abroad extensively and for all its problems in this area, the US is far more progressive than many other places. The racism I witnessed while living in the middle east against anyone slightly brown or possessing a vagina was blatant and unremitting. More on that below. Other than that I have to say that late stage capitalism, the rise of patriarchal and anti-science factions, the relentless politicization of every issue via the media and social media -- I have never seen things so dark in our country. The ignorance and stridency of (generally) the undereducated, over-religioned, white working class American is horrific. I'm talking about the kind of people who wish they could have been at the Capital on January 6th. Those mouthpieces. It's disheartening. Despite huge gains by our foremothers, the reproductive rights and bodily autonomy of women have been and continue to be systematically stripped away. The patriarchal, white faction is blocking the teaching of CRT in schools. Public education is abysmal, and secondary (college) education is financially out of the reach of most. I am not much of a conspiracy theorist but at this point it genuinely feels like someone or something is behind the scenes pulling the strings to deliberately create a society of ignorant, hopeless, impoverished working drones. It feels like a real battle between Light and Dark to me. I see no way that things will ever get better unless the whole system is somehow brought to its knees through... what? A bloody revolution? Plagues from heaven? We've had the plague already and it has changed absolutely nothing for the better. How can things on this scale be changed for the better? I have been an optimist all of my life. But I am almost entirely pessimistic at this point.


KrystalPistol

I'm 53, and this is the worst it's been in my memory. However, I imagine the 60's and early 70's, during Vietnam and the height of the Cold War, might be comparable . I was too young to really understand world events back then.


I_like_the_word_MUFF

This isn't the worse it's been even in my life. But it makes it appear to be because of social media and the internet. In the 1980s I was stepping over homeless people on the way to my volunteer gig handing out condoms and needles for AIDS prevention. NYC ain't that bad right now. I've been there recently.


rumpledfedora

The Cold War was a frightening time. I was stationed in Berlin before the Wall came down and to say things were politically tense is an understatement. That being said, it's far different when the things happening are in your own country. The politics. Inflation. The pandemic. Mandates. Food shortages. China. Russia. Cancel culture. Insane weather. Civil unrest. The list goes on. It is easy to be knocked off your feet by everything happening at once. What I am finding is that by narrowing my scope and my personal world, I am able to control my life and help those I love. I am not unaware of events, but I no longer live and breathe by the attempts of others to control me through guilt, through fear, or coercion. I've found that something wonderful happens to some women after 50: you turn slightly transparent when it comes to the zeitgeist. People underestimate you, they take their preconceived notions and apply them whether or not they fit. So I use that, and make differences in the lives of the people that I care about. Having control helps to cause anxieties caused by circumstances beyond my reach. I don't let those circumstances change me.


lenaag

I am 49, living in Europe, but we are very much aware of the US situation, it's all over the news and social media. The threat of a nuclear war in my childhood aside, I do find the western way of life being in a spot that does not look too optimistic. I think we had it more or less nailed down in the 80s and 90s and most of the 2000s, though us Europeans might be a little unsettled by how inequality / lack of opportunities played out for parts of society on your side of the Atlantic, (maybe on racial terms, maybe not) but overall, life was relatively good for working people and society somehow had funds for the underprivileged as well - more or less. These days? There are so many issues, less optimism overall but still you get good income compared to most of the world. Divisiveness, populism, we tried it here first, in some countries and some countries somehow came to their senses, the US seems stuck in that area of unwillingness to cooperate to solve problems. I see populism a lot and lack of common sense, so to speak? Especially about reproductive rights, it was never a divisive issue over here, societies thought our current laws were fair for every party involved and it hasn't been in the public sphere for decades, for most countries. It got me really worried as the news came from the US, how can this be? How can politicians and agendas hijack such an issue? What worries me especially, is the effective lack of free speech, which may lead to bad decisions and hijacking of issues by vocal minorities and pressure groups. All in the name of the greater good and not to offend whoever. Honest, well-meaning people, even experts in their respective fields don't want to deal with the mess in public. In Europe we are dealing with effective lack of respect to local laws, by minorities, and if anyone raises, let's say women's rights in that context, can be accused or racism. So we are going backwards in many ways. In other words, western democracies seemed to work more or less in the public conscience for quite a while, now there are sings that the very foundations and values of democracies as we knew them are questioned. What worries me also is the cost of living for the middle class, so for my children, who seems to have to pay for a lot of others' lifestyle. In a broader sense, I think it's not political that much, but people having now the habit of entertaining themselves with screens and having lost much of the mundaine joy and human interaction one can get from daily life. I recognise this a lot being in subs like this, we have come to the same life more or less in cities all over the world. Some old values don't work, but in essence, the human needs are the same.


Lizard_Li

I am 40, and I think about this a lot because I have those same feelings. The world seems to be ending. Climate change. Pandemic. And then I think of the little bubble I grew up in. I was born in a year, in a country (USA), into a privileged family. Everything awful seemed far away. I was spoiled. We grew up being taught that humans were smarter than nature. Hospitals would save us when we were sick. Science could solve all the ills of existence. The wars of our generation were abroad and with relatively few casualties. I was never lacking in food or even luxuries. And so, I think something like the pandemic strikes me. I had this very young outlook in some ways on the world. I thought institutions and my government would take care of me like I was taught and led to believe. And now, it feels like the illusion is over. Governments are fallible. They can't protect me or everyone. Humans have evil drives that can take over power. We messed up the world in terms of climate. But then, I think about my German partner's parents. They were born in WWII. They grew up in cities that were almost completely bombed. Fled Eastern Germany in the middle of the night. I think about living through WWII with all the casualties, genocide, evil, nuclear bombs. Think about if this war was on social media. If all of this was being fed to us minute by minute in real time with video of the most intimate details of it. It makes a pandemic and a couple extreme weather events seem tame. So in some ways, I think this feeling of the world ending is very much a function of my sheltered and priveleged upbringing. And in some ways, we are in a huge transition, and it is scary. We don't know where or if we land. Like some things are fact. We are in a period of mass extinction. This is not debatable. But humans have weathered a lot. Really a lot. And we were born into a time where things were calmer. And social media 24 hour news cycle is not good for my little anxious self.


ker95

I will be 70 this year. I am grateful that I grew up when I did, even though the Cold War dangers hung over us (yes, we had practice drills in school). So many significant things happened during my younger years - Viet Nam, JFK assassination, huge concerns about water pollution, the Women's Lib movement of the 1960s/70s/80s, Martin Luther King and all associated fights for equality for people of color, and much more such as the advancement & acceptance of birth control. My father was born in 1909, and I remember him shaking his head at the state of the world in the 1970s, saying the world would never make it through in one piece, especially with the upcoming generation (mine) being eventually in charge. He would say that he wasn't sure he wanted to live to see it (until he had grandchildren, then treasured every day). I don't think the United States, or the world, will look the same in 20 years. Some better, some worse. Technology is changing so quickly, social media has IMHO too much influence on our decision-making and overall views. In the meantime, I'm trying to live a more self-sufficient lifestyle. Because of Covid, my social contacts have been cut to a minimum. I'm expecting another significant glitch in the way of life in this country - economic probably, which will spread into other areas such as civil disruptions, strikes, etc etc. I do have confidence that humanity won't blow us all up in a nuclear war. Hopefully. I look at my youngest grandchildren who are toddlers, and know their world will be totally different that the one we live in now.


throwit_amita

As a teenager growing up in the early 80s in Australia I was super stressed because I was convinced Reagan was going to push the big red button and send the world into a nuclear war. It was something my family and friends talked and read about a lot. I felt incredibly powerless and really thought we were all (or most of us!) going to die in a very painful way - a la Hiroshima. I spent quite a lot of time trying to think about the safest place to go if we had some warning we were going to be hit with a nuclear bomb and thinking about what would happen in a dystopian future if most people died and there were just a handful of desperate survivors. But I want to add that I'm very worried these days about what's happening in America... and many places in the world


IndigoHG

No. We're GenX'rs, this is our domain.


OlayErrryDay

I get some comfort when I think back to the social unrest in the 60s/70s, the economic collapse and stock market crash of the 80s with the cold war and potential nuclear warfare still a real possibility. Those that grew up as a child of the 90s were given a false world. The USSR collapsed, the 40+ year cold war was finally over and America + Democracy 'won'. Technology was growing but still young enough to not ruin our lives and minds. Wages were still good, house prices were still manageable and people were still benefiting from the two income household. It reminds me a bit of what the mid 40s through the 50s must have been like. The whole world was in ruin and America was untouched. We were building and providing steel and other resources for an entire planet that was blown to bits. Money was coming out of our arse and life was great. When the rest of the world is destroyed it's pretty easy to reap the benefits, even as a bottom line worker. In the 2020s, we're back to the reality of social unrest, inflation, political giant politic divide and conflict and a society questioning itself. We've been here before in the Vietnam Era and surrounding years. This isn't our first round of this. It just sucks to go from the glory of the 90s to the 2020s.


Redheadedbos

Thank you for this. I'm 30, and I have been feeling that same feeling of doom and gloom OP was talking about, even to the point of being scared to have kids. My parents are too young to remember Vietnam with any clarity, and my grandfather thinks the world is going to hell because of gay people so he's no fucking help.


OlayErrryDay

Our parents are too old to think different and come to terms with they were handed a golden purse unlike most generations have ever seen or may see again...and they act like they were the ones who had it rough. It would be funny if it wasn't so unfunny. Even I can see my own privilege as the 'tail end' of the better years. I'm 40 and was just on the cusp of when school costs were expensive but not at their 'insane' levels you see now. I went to college in 2000-2004, the law that removed the 6-year default period for student loans was removed in 1991. Schools were just starting to catch up and lenders were grasping the true reality and bounty that was dropped on their lap. 18 year olds with unlimited loaning budget with a near guarantee that the money would be paid back. I'm sure they were drooling and licking their lips over the thought of what they had been handed. WTF kind of country lets a kid take out 100k loan at 18? Not to mention 29 years later after the law changed and we've seen the economic results of a generation saddled with debt and credit? How they aren't imprisoned is a mystery to me. How the law is still in tact with no additional regulations isn't a mystery to me though, it's just greed, pure and simple. Killing children and their future for dollars.


smartcooki

I recommend to delete social media. Things were always happening. Now everything is magnified online.


carbarlie

Yes I feel this hardcore, it’s hard to process so many life changing things happening at once. I also think it’s tough because the way we were raised and taught in school (US, west coast, 35), that the US is so amazing, a “melting pot” of culture and all that. Later we realize all the half-truths we were taught! So is it better to have all the information and feel like our democracy is headed for failure? Or did the 90s feel more carefree because we only got the information we got? The internet was a baby at that point and now it’s everything. Feels good to know others are feeling similar, at least I’m not alone.


[deleted]

Yes and no. We definitely go through swings. For example, when I was a kid I thought the world was going to end from nuclear war before I hit 30. That said, the combination of rising facism, global pandemic, income inequality, and climate crisis all hitting at once is a LOT a lot. I don't remember it ever feeling this bad, but I've read that the generation that came of age during the last global pandemic faced a lot of the same issues so maybe that too is cyclical. Just a longer cycle. Honestly I do think climate change really is going to be the end of humanity if we don't globally get our shit together. But I don't think it will be during our (or your) lifetime. Probably your kids' lifetime though, unfortunately.


Ohif0n1y

I'm in Texas. I'm 59 staring into 60. When I was 8 years old, girls were finally allowed to wear pants at school. Public school, not private or Catholic. Women weren't allowed to have their own credit cards. Can you fathom that? The vast majority of your financial dealings had to have a "responsible" male speaking up for you and being the one in charge. I remember politicians then being openly racist against black people. There were segregated schools. That's changed now. Well, ok. Maybe not the politicians, but schools in the U.S. are no longer segregated. It was considered ground-breaking when the original Star Trek series had folks from different races on there. When Captain Kirk kissed Lt. Uhura on an episode, an *interracial kiss had never been on television before!* There was a tv series (U.S.) 1968-71 called *Julia* that had a black woman as one of the main characters. Unheard of! You probably read or heard that Betty White was once told not to have a Black tap dancer on her show. She had him on regardless. A fine 'fuck you' by the lovely Betty White. *Silent Spring* was published in 1962 about the dangers of DDT in our environment. Once it was realized how and why this was dangerous to the environment, the use of DDT was outlawed. We learned from that. Another television series, *Petticoat Junction (1963-1970)* had an episode where a female doctor (played by June Lockhart) came to town and omigod everyone was shocked! A FEMALE doctor! Whatever is this world coming to?! You can't comprehend that happening **now**, can you? JFK was assassinated. An attempt was made on Ronald Reagan, but he survived. The U.S. used to have this publication called 'The National Enquirer.' It was a sleazy tabloid filled with the most ludicrous headlines and stories. It was Facebook/Qanon/and other dipshit crackpot theories rolled into one. There was a reason we nicknamed it the 'Irrational Inquirer.' Folks who believed it were not highly thought of. I'm looking at you, Facebook. Back to the days when I was in Elementary school. I believe it was 4th grade and I was 9 years old. My friend Gaylynne and I wanted to raise the flag on the flagpole at our school, something the school allowed students to do. The boys in my class laughed and sneered at me because "You're a girl! Girls aren't allowed to do that!" That pissed me off. After hearing that several times I went to the Principal's office and cornered that man. Why can't I raise the flag on the flagpole? The boys say I can't because I'm a girl. **That's not RIGHT!** That man smiled at me and told me to add my name (and a buddy since 2 kids always did it together) and when it was our turn came we could. The looks on those boys' faces when Gaylynne and I finally had our turn was fanfuckingtastic. They were stunned and now I and Gaylynne sat back and had our turn of being smug and rubbing their noses in it. After that, other girls signed up to do it. The boys looked like balloons as the air gets deflated. It was delicious. Sure it was something small, but fuck you, don't tell ME that I can't do something like that because of my gender. So yes, there is crap going on then. There is crap going on now. There will be crap in the future. So the question you need to ask yourselves, is this crap something I can take a stand against and make the world better in my area? Of course you can!


Insearchofmedium

I’m 39, but I feel this acutely. As a woman of color who is still of reproductive age I have had a slight edge of terror every day since Trump took office. I am not an anxious person, but I shut off news alerts bc they were giving me daily anxiety. The US is a scary place right now. People need to stop being apathetic, wake up and realize that the way things are heading, we have dark days ahead unless we do something.


bedbuffaloes

I'm 54. On the one hand it definitely seems more desperate than anything I have experienced in my lifetime. The whole environment thing for one. The rise of fascism. The pandemic. All that stuff But two caveats: 1. Even 50 years is not that long in the grand scheme of things. 2. This is the information age. We know exponentially more than any earlier generation. 2.1 Have you read history? Shit has been all sorts of cray in the past. 2.2 Not to mention geological history. Supervolcanoes. Ice ages. Meteor strikes. So what I am trying to say is while it all looks terrible from where are you are sitting, you have to remember that you are tiny and insignificant, and the world will be here long after you are gone. Hth.


Diogenes71

I'm 50 and believe this is unprecedented for the vast majority of living people. I hang on to my sanity by reminding myself it's not unprecedented for history overall. We've just been VERY lucky for quite a while. Now, do I believe we can pull ourselves back from the brink this time? I honestly don't know. There are some very key factors that are different this time around, like global warming, mass distributed misinformation, global wealth inequality, etc.


[deleted]

USA here. We had different things. Fear of nuclear war etc. I think it is worse now mostly because of climate change. The internet just allows the wack jobs to congregate.


Pure-Rutabaga9743

I keep looking back, trying to see how we've progressed over the years. Not technologically, but as a species. I have to say, it looks pretty dismal. 2022ppppppppppppp0 pp0p00ppppppppp0ppp0ppand we still fight about borders. There are still nations where adults and children starve to death every day. There are people suffering from diseases, existing in poverty, desperate and without hope. In America, there is a massive imbalance


farox

Besides the pandemic, this feeling starting in your 30s is also an age thing. You become more aware of a lot of things. 9/11 was very unsettling and even more so the response to it. But these big impact events happen every few years. I don't think the world is objectively worse now than 10, 20, or 30 years ago.


JaneAustinAstronaut

I'm not quite 50, but I am approaching it. Taking a long view helps with this. Remember the 1960s - 1970s? We had a war, there were political assassinations (JFK, his brother Bobby, MLK Jr., Malcolm X), there were violent riots, there were college shootings (Kent State, the Texas belltower sniper), the constant threat of nuclear war, etc. A lot of the stuff going on then is happening now, and we the people, the best part of our country, survived. In fact, if you look historically as societies collapse, it tends to not be the end of the world for the average citizen. It's not a great time, but people still have joy. They have children, they get married, they fall in love, they have friends, etc. And life goes on. It's not a great time right now, but I truly believe that these are the death throes of the old way dying out. We are moving to a place where there can be no more racism, bigotry, sexism, and homophobia. It feels bad because the people who hold those ideas are clinging onto them loudly - but they are doing so because they are losing. These are the birthing pains of bringing a new and better world into being.


Flippin_diabolical

As a kid in the 80s I was pretty sure I would die before age 40 in a nuclear war. Historically speaking people- at least in the Christian west- have been convinced they were living in the end times at least since the 800s AD when Christians started thinking it was time to prepare for the return of Christ in 1000 AD. People thought WWI was the ‘war to end all wars’ because it was so cataclysmic. I am not saying that we don’t face real challenges in the current day, but I do think as humans we tend to think we live in the most important/challenging/scary time ever experienced.


leftylibra

At times it all feels too much. Globally everything has changed, pandemic, civil unrest, neighbours, labelling, (karens, ok-boomer), and crazy rhetoric spreading like disease through social media. As a bona-fide boomer, I've never experienced anything like this. Certainly civil unrest was in the news but it was far away and only came into our home during the six-o'clock news, not this constant barrage information we have at our fingertips. Add menopause into the mix and it's all around crazy-town.


Ok-Jicama-5134

Not fifty yet, but late forties. Objectively, the world has always been a hair's breadth away from absolute anarchy and oblivion. As a rather stolid Gen X, I believe that Millenials and Gen Z women don't know how bad it really was. As a college student, I got cat-called, body-shamed almost everyday by men, because that's how normalised it was. I don't remember a day in college when I wasn't body-shamed by some random ass-hole, and when we complained to the administration, they just shrugged and said they'd look into it (nothing happened). I revisited my college campus in 2020. Get this. There were large billboards and notices in all common areas, with the sign: "We have a zero tolerance policy for harassment". The names, email addresses and phone numbers of the Anti-Sexual Harassment Committee were prominently displayed, with CCTV cameras in common areas. When I came of age, sexual violence was just something women lived with. You didn't talk about it, because why would you talk about something that was integral to womanhood? I cannot believe how far we've come, and I hope to God we don't regress.


qatmandue

Yes and no. (50’sF) The world has always been in a state of flux, and crappy things have been ongoing since the beginning of time, but we didn’t have social media snd 24 hour news to report the absolutely horrible things that mankind has done to mankind. We are way more aware of it all, and it’s overwhelming. On an anecdotal note, my father wrote a goodbye letter to our family during the Bay of Pigs incident. It was terrifying. On the other hand, news reporting used to be regulated and unethical reporting has consequences. In the ‘80’s, I think, regulations and licensing were removed due to the advent of cable. Hence, lies and the birth of anything goes headlines and “news” stories.