it's the nihilism that scares me
I don't need to go into the specific moment in our news cycle more than just to say that it rings of the same hopelessness I see in some kids' eyes as a teacher. Why read a novel or draw anything in a generation screwed by your grandparents, with even middle-upper-class kids looking at a lowering quality of life by each generation.
I think about what I would advise an eighteen year old to do with their life (college advising is part of my weird academia time) versus what I was taught the world would offer me in 2005 - just to be snatched away when I graduated college in the thick of recession. And it's mostly this: don't have kids for a decade and don't go into debt and no field is stable, with this last bit feeling more true in our coming future than it did in 2009.
The internet is worse and worse and the future is grim and it's making us sick. I feel like my brain has been rewiring itself since I was deep into my Facebook battles in 2014-2017ish. Chronic Facebook posting. Cringe. By the time I quit, in 2020 after the election as my family was posting conspiracy theories, I was feeling numb every day. Over the last couple months I've felt a similar rhythm of numb/panicked/spiralling and then fine, then numb again. I had pulled myself out of the goo until about three days ago when the fear gripped again.
The things that helped me then are the same things that will help me now in my compulsive news consumption now: Spend time IRL with people. Talk to random people. Co-regulate in person with old friends you feel safe with. Touch literal grass and wait in lines with people without your phone.
Things are really bad but I think losing the last shreds of hope will make me lose my grip.