It’s difficult to defeat the overwhelming feeling of “There is no future (Or at least not a good one), so what’s the point?”. I feel like even if I live to 100 we’re not going to be anywhere close to a Star Trek utopia, but more smack dab in the middle of a Dark Age.
The real tragedy is that we don’t need to live in a post-scarcity star trek utopia (which is a physical impossibility anyway). Everything any human could ever need is already in abundance on this planet. You don’t need more than community, good food, and art. It’s only capitalist ideology that deludes us into thinking we could ever need or want or have anything else. And it’s capitalism itself that makes us unable to have these things and makes us unable to enjoy them when we have them.
To try to respond to your post a bit more directly, because I do feel with you:
It helps to read books. It helps to listen to music, especially old music. It helps to unplug from our algorithmic ever-present media world. The things that are given to us by the people in power only have one purpose: To make us believe another world isn’t possible, but another world is possible and the more we walk our own paths the more likely we are to get there. It takes effort to seek out the things and connections that allow you to believe in the possibility of a liveable future.
This is not an easy thing to do. It is in fact very hard. Things are very bad, indescribably bad. Things are going to get worse and they are probably going to get worse at an accelerating pace. But there is the possibility of a live that is authentic to yourself and that doesn’t close itself off from the world its troubles and its beauty.
I don’t really know where I am going with this, since I’m also just in the process of trying to figure this thing out. Making sincere posts on this stupid website and seriously talking about our lives and this here world is already better than most other things you can do on your phone though.
Y’know why it’s a tragedy when an olive grove is destroyed? Because they do not grow in a lifetime. Olive groves are a gift from those before to those after. We were not the first to sow, but we are also not the last. When you find rare fruit, share it, and one day, it may be reaped in abundance.
I’ve come across the idea of a “modest utopia” recently and really like it. It challenges us to reckon with the reality of an ever changing world. Even at the best of times, peace is something that must be actively built and maintained—a perpetual act of balance and not something we can ever stop thinking about or working towards. The idea of a modest utopia challenges us to think of realistic, pragmatic ways to improve the world within our immediate reach. It can take lots of studying to understand your material conditions, your place within the wider world and the ways you relate to it to be able to do that, but it’s a much more achievable goal and perhaps less prone to doomerism.
Of course I understand that anyone having a shred of empathy will still experience immense grief living in the world today and I’m not trying to minimise that or any suffering, but being a doomer actually just benefits the powers that be.
What to do when you’re still gonna live. Plan for the future as best you can I guess. Try to be healthy, you don’t want to be 70 in poor health in the Dark Age right. Try to save money for as long as money is worth something, better to have it and not need it than the reverse.
The feeling you’re talking about can be partially treated by taking action. Even the small more pointless action like recycling, composting, going vegan - never mind the bigger harder stuff.
The future is worth fighting for, at least I think so, but it isn’t an easy fight by any means for sure.
There’s always the gratitude of future humans
Some sort of “future suffering and benefit” index being used in decision making should be a thing. Robinson has a version of it in his climate change book.
i have some global hope with the impending collapse of american hegemony, but that’s coming from BRICS, not anything do with me and nothing that will uplift me from my misery.
Solidarity with future generations.
Do you see yourself as a Designated Individual Recipient of the trends that the world/history offers you, someone whose meaning in life is contingent on the consumption of some society-wide (read: greater power or Generalized Other) achievement?
Or do you have something you believe can be done with your own life that fits in with moving the world in the direction of “winning a future” or making things “better”?
We’re in a position of uncertainty. But we can take a stance with our lives that is both intrinsically gratifying and revolutionary in the bigger picture.
Take a break from consuming doom and gloom. Go outside and touch some grass
