I've been looking for a job and jesus it's really gotten to me. Half the listed jobs are either the big tech companies like meta/aws etc. or defense contractors like lhm, northop-grummann or even dodgier glowie orgs. I'm pretty sure when such a large chunk of the economy is fucking defense contractors that it shows in the job market for something utterly unrelated (IT), that's fascism. Then I see they're selling off the UK military to palantir. Great.
It wasn't like this before. There were your goofy startups and your B2B SaaS companies, the latter I work for and it's been going under for years because it simply was never a good idea.
But that's just the straw that broke the camel's back because it was so real in a way reading news stories on the internet just isn't, it wasn't just a fact, it was an element of my life now, no different from the weather outside.
The absolute onslaught of anti-intellectualism, it's like a virus tearing through the population, a psychological blight, much worse than any coronavirus could be. The hypernormalization of it all and the sheer whiplash of the overton window has even got me shifting rightwards, through sheer osmosis and pressure.
Every time I hear my coworkers mention "grok" I get like a reaction, like "oh, that's the internet thing" and the compartmentalization of brain rot falters, I'm forced to acknowledge it is in fact - real, that what is going on is in fact real, and not just something I can laugh at. Being queer and an immigrant it's frankly shocking I've even been able to maintain this defense mechanism this long. My very future is on the chopping block, always has been, but maybe the city walls just can't stand the seige anymore.
But while I can take care of myself, I worry about the world, about others, distant and close alike. I don't need everyone to believe what I believe or align with what I think, but I feel insane at times because it seems like even the simplest rational thoughts are few and far between, everyone seems unhinged or some sort of insane grifter. It makes me want to grab the world and shake it like "why can't you just be normal".
And then there's people who plunge headfirst into the hypernormalization, realigning with the status quo, maintaining a pretense of continuity, when it is clear there's absolutely no real belief beneath. The pretense just intensifies to compensate.
Nonetheless I don't think there's much I can do, I don't know where to even start, I'd happily fight against the world that's coming but I can't do it alone, and it sure feels like I'm pretty much alone.
The burden of our time sucks, is all. Anybody got some good strategies to disconnect for a bit, so I can recuperate my psych defenses? Smell the roses and all?
EDIT: thanks everyone who responded. Think I'll check out of Lemmy for a bit, I'll make sure to read your insights and experiences when I get back. Thanks, and be well.
At what point - in your opinion - is suffering and being aware of it is a "mental health issue"?
When, if ever - are people permitted to be simply sad and simply vent into the void for a sense of catharsis without getting "mental health" slapped on top of them by complete strangers on the internet who don't know that person, or much of anything for that matter? Does the collapse of a civilization/world do it? Death of a friend? Physical sickness? Bad weather?
Or is it all - "mental health", and that this learned helplessness, selective dismissal of a very real change in society as being in any way related to the pseudophilosophical vague conception of a "universal suffering" that is usually reserved for universal human experiences like death and such and not man-made horrors beyond our comprehension and the well-practiced self-gaslighting you preach the only way to meet this ever-elusive criteria?
I apologize. Initially I came off as dismissive and that's not what I meant.
When you let things you can't control make your life a living hell.
If that's how you want to be, that's fine. If you're so upset with your life, you can do 2 things. You can change it, or you can change how you view it. But doing nothing and staying upset, in my opinion, in not mentally healthy.
We as humans are always helpless in one way or another. That's ok. That's what I'm saying. You have to learn to live with some things sometimes.
Not dismissing it. Changing how you react to it. If there's nothing you can do, why get upset?
I would say, the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, was a a bit beyond a pseudo-philosophizer. Suffering is everywhere. Life is full of pain, sadness, and frustration. Desire causes suffering. Wanting things to be different or clinging to what we have makes us unhappy.
I don't really understand this. You repeat this again later "your life" this "your life" that.
My life is fine. It's pretty fucking good actually, I don't know anyone who has it as good as I do. The world - external to my life, is not. It is in fact - depressing to see others not thrive as I have, not through any fault of their own but mere luck being on my side and not on theirs. This empathy extends to my girlfriend, my friends, acquaintances, colleagues and even strangers.
There's nothing about my life that relates to this in the slightest, I could sit stop the highest most grand castle there is, and it wouldn't change the facts of the world around said castle.
Not everything is about self-help.
Yes and I don't agree. I think twisting the facts to suit a more palatable narrative is intellectually dishonest. I don't think it's entirely avoidable either, but it's not a solution. Doing something on the other hand - yes of course. But that's assuming you have the means, which I don't.
Yes, that's true of course. But we're not talking about a bad stroke of luck in the genetic lottery here or a freak accident, we're talking about man-made purposeful oppression. These are not the same things.
That's the same thing. You're snubbing your normal reaction to something for no actual logical reason.
Why ever get upset at anything? Why feel anything at all?
You feel the emotions you feel. Unless there's a logical reason to actively fight them (being manipulated, paranoid e.g. afraid of something that is probably not a threat), then there isn't a cause to alter those emotions just because they're unpleasant.
But the people who take those ideas and twist them into a self-help guru narrative are shameless, on the other hand.
Yes. But this can be changed, it is the very essence of why progress happens at all on anything ever. Accepting these things as a fact of life is nothing more than defeat.
No, actually. Not in this case, not in a lot of cases, dare I even say - most, and deep down you know it too.
Consider this analogy:
If someone comes along and breaks your legs, and it hurts, that person is what causes you suffering, it is them who has made you unhappy, not you and your supposedly misguided desire for unbroken legs.
Even if you can't stop this person, knowing who the enemy is, and refusing to break mentally and cave to them, to accept that their actions are some inherent fact of life and not just the awful actions of another human, standing fast against the test of time alone - is the real response, to maintain your self, your dignity and your beliefs, to refuse the transgressor the satisfaction of breaking your spirit, that's the one thing that any person can do even in the most helpless situation.
Oppressed peoples from all corners of land and walks of life know this throughout all time - it is ancient knowledge, you can kill a man, but you cannot kill an idea.
Rolling over and adapting to them is what I see some do and it's perhaps the most depressing thing there is, this "hypernormalization".
The multiple essays on how this world is a living hell say otherwise. Get some fresh air.
Can you not distinguish between "the world" and yourself? Is your view of the world so subjective it's tied to your own life and perception of self? Maybe it's you who needs some fresh air. I actually took a break from Lemmy as well.