Do things need to get worse before they can get better?

[glowingfish]

 A lot going on, some of which I will talk about later...

 

But of course, for a lot of you, the war might be on your mind.

So here is one thing, for people inside and outside the US, and also for younger people: right now everything feels shitty. And it feels shitty in so many ways. Not just the current war, but in that everything is more difficult, and it seems the prospects for the future. Like everything feels dark. I am 46 years old, and I can't remember a time when things just felt so...grey and disappointing. Even our simple, guilty pleasures aren't as good anymore. Like, cheap microwaved dinners are...more expensive, and taste worse?

But here is the thing: things seem so bad, and people are pessimistic, that it might actually make social or political change harder. Because people aren't thinking "What do I want out of life?" or "How do we live in a better society?" or even "I want better pizza!", people are just accepting that the base level of the world is terrible. And that if world civilization and economy aren't actually, 100% destroyed, then that is tolerable.

And maybe one day we (collectively) will wake up and not think of the world in terms of shitty versus shittier.

Also, incidentally, this is part of the double standard of American politics. Any serious plan for a beneficial program will be criticized as unrealistic, and people advocating for it will be very careful about any backlash it could cause. If a politician went out and said "lets add 5 cents per gallon of gas to pay for major mass transit projects", they would be criticized for living in a fairy tale and harming small businesses...but when Trump has driven up costs by so much more, across the board, it is just something people have to live with. Apparently. 

Comments

[amberite]

I can't relate to the microwave dinner problem, & indeed find my access to cheap high-quality microwave food to be one of the silver lining blessings of the present, which suggests that it may be geographic (unless you're having post-covid taste impairment.) Is Trader Joe's a thing in your present landscape?

(Edit: I guess "cheap" is relative, I just remembered not everyone has food allergies so it's possible you're buying food in a tier that simply hasn't been accessible to me for a decade and a half. But I'm getting good quality stuff for say < $4 a meal via Trader Joe's or Saffron Road brand, and for those of us who can't have gluten it's also been the golden age of giant boxes/bags of oven-cookable frozen breaded chicken and fish, lately.)

[glowingfish]

Funny you should mention that! I am in Lincoln City, and the closest Trader Joe's is in Salem. Six weeks ago, while on a trip to Salem for other reasons, I went to Trader Joe's and got lots and lots of pouches of Indian food! But because I was literally going home on a 90 minute bus ride, and putting everything in my backpack, I did not get anything frozen, so sadly! :(