I just don't watch the news. I know it's good to be informed, but I don't need to stress myself out by seeing all of the evil. If we're in a country-wide crisis, someone will tell me. In the meantime, I'm just focusing on taking care of my village.
I've been the same for a long while, I hear you. But now, lately, to me, regardless of how much news I check or how much I allow it into my bubble, or your village, as you said, I feel like we've reached the point now where society has been really changed irreparably, like everyone else is plugged in and unaware, so, the points we're reaching now feel, to me..., like it no longer matters if ive kept it out,, because the poison from it has seeped out into the collective, and so few are even aware of it. So it's like a zombie apocalypse really, but like just, people consumed.
So even going out, doing regular shit, I feel it. Might be time to get to the country, and just fully make a more legitimate bubble away from it..
Might be time to get to the country, and just fully make a more legitimate bubble away from it..
I've spent the past couple of years obsessed with the idea of homesteading, but I cannot afford to do any of it. At best, maybe I'd have a borrowed tent in someone's back yard. That's so far removed from what I want, though.
I'm working three jobs, not because I have to, but because all of my kids are now grown and I'm doing it to pass the time. One of them is at Fedex in the early morning, because it replaced the gym and I'm getting paid to work out and the other is mowing yards for a few select people because I'm a perfectionist, I enjoy being outdoors and doing yard work and I have the added bonus of getting paid.
I've gotten to season 7! There were moments when I wanted to cry because I used to watch it with my dad and he passed in '95. But it's still taking me back and those precious memories flooding back is a great thing.
The hardest part is realizing we grew up in the golden age of America. That was the peak and it's all downhill from now. I didn't expect it to be freefall, but here we are.
I think western society peaked somewhere near 2010, plus/minus a few years. Countries were increasing integration and cooperation. The ozone levels in the atmosphere was coming back and showed us we can do big things if we just put our minds to it and work together. We had made decent progress in global nuclear disarmament and so on. My own country was reducing the size of our army and the mandatory military service we've had since forever. We still had hope then.
I agree, I'll take your plus/minus into consideration as my cutoff is around 2006-ish. Right before the housing bust and politics took a serious turn for the worse. Before that things were relatively stable among people, and it was right before the smart phone was launched and social media began conquering the masses which really damaged society as it is a powerfully addictive pair.
I had a fantastic time also, because I was in my mid 20's, I was advancing in my career, I was in the gym all the time so looking good, I met my now wife during that time and it was just a lot of fun in general with friends, events and socializing.
So yeah I totally get it on a personal level because I'm kind of right there with you.
My favorite future is when cool stuff exists but it's so rare and so rich that it might as well be CGI because we'll almost all only see it in video form.
The saddest part for me is younger people never lived in “normal” times. I’m not expecting the world to go back to how it was. We do want a cultural memory of what it is like to live with three functional branches of government and politicians who concede elections when they lose. There was more freedom and less paranoia. We used to go to Canada with a driver’s license. There were rich people but not an oligarchy.
Eh, I tend to have a different kind of happiness these days. Waking up by myself with the wife and kids still asleep at the campground. Sitting on a chair and listening to the birds with my Merlin app open saying shit like “oh a summer tanager!”
Gardening with the kids and watching them get excited when they can harvest their peas and tomatoes and teaching them the importance of keeping native flowers and spots for native insects and bees.
Enjoying the time I have left with my aging parents that I know is fleeting.
Sitting with my wife and watching nerdy shows and having to rewatch them 10 times because we fell asleep again.
Definitely not like my crazy teens and 20s, but I was ready to let that go anyway.
Seriously. I have had a few conversations with my husband (older Gen X) about how we pretty much lived through the peak of human civilization in the 90s when people were still optimistic and excited about the future. It is definitely a bit depressing but we do our best to carry on with a smile (even if it's often a sardonic one).
Has anyone else in our generation grown up with an inherent intuitive sense about this very present day that we find ourselves in? This has been something of a knowing within me,, that this was where we were heading. For the past 10 years it has felt like, things are becoming exactly what I've felt inside for my whole life??
Friends and I used to truly joke about , oh haha the future, yeah lol we'll be like sarah connor lol!!
Yeah, it's a bummer for most of us. But you to keep in mind that many folks who also lived through the 80's and 90's helped create the cesspool we live in today
I'm raising my kids (ages 5 and 1 to be good humans, I vote for the candidates that seem like they align most with what's important to me in every election I learn about (not just every 4 years), I garden, I cook, I do the best I can with the tools I've got, and I never stop learning.
Tbf as children we didn't really have to worry or know what was going on.
My folks,( adult's in the 80s and 90s) had to worry about their kids dying in pointless wars in the middle east while rich "fat cats" used political influence and technolgical advances to decimate the local economy turning cities into ghosts towns, to enrich the owners at the top.
All While the conservative zeightgiest bemoaned the influence and spread of "Satanic influence", like "urban culture" and homosexuals....
My biggest struggle is that maybe it’s always been gaslighting “freedom” BS— maybe it really has been all about rich white guys wanting to own people and not pay taxes.
Then I’m reminded that this struggle is my white privilege, as I’m told other demographics work through this sometime during childhood.
I find myself constantly nostalgic for an era that ran from about 1987-99, so I’m the wrong one to ask.
And I understand there was a lotta problematic stuff back in the day, so I’d have to find a balance between the best things about that era and throw in a few good things I like about the 21st Century.
It’s the 21st century on the internet. This joke is reaching “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side” status. I love Airplane! and all but like come on. This isn’t a novel use of the joke and you’re cross posting it like it’s just the darndest thing. It is not.
_buffy_summers@reddit
I just don't watch the news. I know it's good to be informed, but I don't need to stress myself out by seeing all of the evil. If we're in a country-wide crisis, someone will tell me. In the meantime, I'm just focusing on taking care of my village.
Slinkwyde@reddit
But we need you, Buffy! The hellmouth has opened.
_buffy_summers@reddit
It opened about ten years ago.
brighthannah@reddit
I've been the same for a long while, I hear you. But now, lately, to me, regardless of how much news I check or how much I allow it into my bubble, or your village, as you said, I feel like we've reached the point now where society has been really changed irreparably, like everyone else is plugged in and unaware, so, the points we're reaching now feel, to me..., like it no longer matters if ive kept it out,, because the poison from it has seeped out into the collective, and so few are even aware of it. So it's like a zombie apocalypse really, but like just, people consumed. So even going out, doing regular shit, I feel it. Might be time to get to the country, and just fully make a more legitimate bubble away from it..
oh Yeahhh happy Easter everyone. Lol!!
_buffy_summers@reddit
I've spent the past couple of years obsessed with the idea of homesteading, but I cannot afford to do any of it. At best, maybe I'd have a borrowed tent in someone's back yard. That's so far removed from what I want, though.
comesinallpackages@reddit
Streaming classic TV with my blinds closed and pretending it’s 1990.
MightyCaseyStruckOut@reddit
I'm working three jobs, not because I have to, but because all of my kids are now grown and I'm doing it to pass the time. One of them is at Fedex in the early morning, because it replaced the gym and I'm getting paid to work out and the other is mowing yards for a few select people because I'm a perfectionist, I enjoy being outdoors and doing yard work and I have the added bonus of getting paid.
Treadingresin@reddit (OP)
I started rewatching The X Files yesterday. Not sure how far I'll get before the nostalgia takes me out.
kelp_forests@reddit
Oh yeah me too. Its nice to watch tv that’s not full of douchebags
Serrajuana@reddit
I've gotten to season 7! There were moments when I wanted to cry because I used to watch it with my dad and he passed in '95. But it's still taking me back and those precious memories flooding back is a great thing.
Treadingresin@reddit (OP)
That's very touching, thank you for sharing. Its lovely to have something connecting the invisible bounds, often it is a TV show.
newsflashjackass@reddit
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CM-WXxM6uaE
iknowiknowwhereiam@reddit
I only care about cans of anchovies and stuffy old songs about the buttocks.
CocaineComet@reddit
Ah lemme guess with sardines?
original_cmikey@reddit
There's a lot of comfort in knowing it will be over soon.
Tommonator80@reddit
“I’m getting too old for this shit”
CaptinEmergency@reddit
I picked a bad day to give up heroin.
ymOx@reddit
In the movie Deja Vu with Denzel Washington some guy says at one point "Looks like I picked a bad week to stop snorting hash"... O_ó
I am always reminded if it when I hear your quote.
Genius-Envy@reddit
Just wait until you watch airplane!
OPzee19@reddit
OpiumPhrogg@reddit
Fun fact: most of us are now older than Danny Glover was when he said that.
absentlyric@reddit
Danny Glover was only 41 in the first Lethal Weapon when he was saying that, that should make you feel even older.
Tommonator80@reddit
Yep 46 and feeling too old lol
Exact-Sheepherder797@reddit
The hardest part is realizing we grew up in the golden age of America. That was the peak and it's all downhill from now. I didn't expect it to be freefall, but here we are.
Eledridan@reddit
Remember when things were always positive and we looked forward to the future? We were supposed to have flying cars and be living on the moon.
ymOx@reddit
I think western society peaked somewhere near 2010, plus/minus a few years. Countries were increasing integration and cooperation. The ozone levels in the atmosphere was coming back and showed us we can do big things if we just put our minds to it and work together. We had made decent progress in global nuclear disarmament and so on. My own country was reducing the size of our army and the mandatory military service we've had since forever. We still had hope then.
wasabiburning@reddit
Specifically, the era of pre-algorithmic, pre-smartphone internet was the peak. The Mayans were right, the world ended in 2012.
Dull_Morning5697@reddit
You think things were still ascending after 9/11? Bold claim.
ymOx@reddit
Yes I do think so. That was much more troublesome for americans. Something I am not.
Dull_Morning5697@reddit
Neither am I but it affected almost everything around the world; Travel, oil prices, distrust, increased surveilance.
stykface@reddit
I agree, I'll take your plus/minus into consideration as my cutoff is around 2006-ish. Right before the housing bust and politics took a serious turn for the worse. Before that things were relatively stable among people, and it was right before the smart phone was launched and social media began conquering the masses which really damaged society as it is a powerfully addictive pair.
So, 2006 is kind of my apex of Western society.
ymOx@reddit
Yes you are right. I think I'm influenced by the fact that from around 2006 and about a decade from there I had a great time personally.
stykface@reddit
I had a fantastic time also, because I was in my mid 20's, I was advancing in my career, I was in the gym all the time so looking good, I met my now wife during that time and it was just a lot of fun in general with friends, events and socializing.
So yeah I totally get it on a personal level because I'm kind of right there with you.
marxistopportunist@reddit
But finite natural resources all have to peak and decline
bikemandan@reddit
Incidentally, flying cars are kind of a thing now. Check it out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh71gTSfr6g
Sea-Aardvark-756@reddit
My favorite future is when cool stuff exists but it's so rare and so rich that it might as well be CGI because we'll almost all only see it in video form.
bigsampsonite@reddit
I was just saying we were promised flying cars. What we got was Idiocracy.
BouncyCatMama@reddit
The Jetsons lied to us and I'm still salty about it.
psilosophist@reddit
The future was cancelled in favor of making the line go up in quarterly reports.
xycor@reddit
The saddest part for me is younger people never lived in “normal” times. I’m not expecting the world to go back to how it was. We do want a cultural memory of what it is like to live with three functional branches of government and politicians who concede elections when they lose. There was more freedom and less paranoia. We used to go to Canada with a driver’s license. There were rich people but not an oligarchy.
Solintari@reddit
Eh, I tend to have a different kind of happiness these days. Waking up by myself with the wife and kids still asleep at the campground. Sitting on a chair and listening to the birds with my Merlin app open saying shit like “oh a summer tanager!”
Gardening with the kids and watching them get excited when they can harvest their peas and tomatoes and teaching them the importance of keeping native flowers and spots for native insects and bees.
Enjoying the time I have left with my aging parents that I know is fleeting.
Sitting with my wife and watching nerdy shows and having to rewatch them 10 times because we fell asleep again.
Definitely not like my crazy teens and 20s, but I was ready to let that go anyway.
click-monster@reddit
As I now like to say to ppl in our cohort when they become a year older: "Wow. You really picked a year to have a birthday"
bananaHammockMonkey@reddit
I try to help the younger people, I push my kids to be better but it just pisses them off. So I go back to my happy life and keep to myself!
ballen1002@reddit
I picked a hell of a decade to stop sniffing glue.
Serrajuana@reddit
Keep on sniffin' til your brain goes POP
Ok_Breakfast5425@reddit
Laquer head knows but one desire, laquer head sets his skull on fire
birdsword@reddit
Never too late to pick it up again. You can do it!
jujumber@reddit
We're sick of this shit. We're also very used to dissappointement.
Readed-of-Smut@reddit
whim-sicles@reddit
Actual lol
TrustAffectionate966@reddit
🧉🦄
bigsampsonite@reddit
Advil, Tylenol, coffee, and thc.
UtahIrish@reddit
We’re all counting on you!
Crowedsource@reddit
Seriously. I have had a few conversations with my husband (older Gen X) about how we pretty much lived through the peak of human civilization in the 90s when people were still optimistic and excited about the future. It is definitely a bit depressing but we do our best to carry on with a smile (even if it's often a sardonic one).
USAF_Retired2017@reddit
chocki305@reddit
The response is so perfect. As it also answers the question.
We do it with humor, sometimes dark, but always on point.
brighthannah@reddit
Has anyone else in our generation grown up with an inherent intuitive sense about this very present day that we find ourselves in? This has been something of a knowing within me,, that this was where we were heading. For the past 10 years it has felt like, things are becoming exactly what I've felt inside for my whole life??
Friends and I used to truly joke about , oh haha the future, yeah lol we'll be like sarah connor lol!!
But now like..
Like, I'm truly really, becoming sarah connor .
CaptShrek13@reddit
Hi Depressed, nice to meet you.
Lower-Tomatillo-9513@reddit
Yeah, it's a bummer for most of us. But you to keep in mind that many folks who also lived through the 80's and 90's helped create the cesspool we live in today
Ut_Prosim@reddit
Boomers and older Gen X did, we never had the power or opportunity to fuck things up.
IsraelZulu@reddit
You don't think a lot of Xen voted for this, too?
unknown1310P1@reddit
This!
dudebro5000@reddit
That's why I have a drinking problem
DameKitty@reddit
I'm raising my kids (ages 5 and 1 to be good humans, I vote for the candidates that seem like they align most with what's important to me in every election I learn about (not just every 4 years), I garden, I cook, I do the best I can with the tools I've got, and I never stop learning.
Tinyhulk27@reddit
Tbf as children we didn't really have to worry or know what was going on.
My folks,( adult's in the 80s and 90s) had to worry about their kids dying in pointless wars in the middle east while rich "fat cats" used political influence and technolgical advances to decimate the local economy turning cities into ghosts towns, to enrich the owners at the top.
All While the conservative zeightgiest bemoaned the influence and spread of "Satanic influence", like "urban culture" and homosexuals....
So pretty much the same shit going on today.
gotfcgo@reddit
Remember when we used to look forward to tomorrow?
Pepperidge Farm remembers.
Treadingresin@reddit (OP)
NorthBase710@reddit
Go and ask people on the Balkans if they want to live in the 90s again,
Also the 80s and 90s where far from perfect, people need to stop looking at the past with rose colored glasses
Adventurous_Spell222@reddit
anOvenofWitches@reddit
My biggest struggle is that maybe it’s always been gaslighting “freedom” BS— maybe it really has been all about rich white guys wanting to own people and not pay taxes.
Then I’m reminded that this struggle is my white privilege, as I’m told other demographics work through this sometime during childhood.
Aggressive_Walk378@reddit
Adventurous_Spell222@reddit
This is the only appropriate response.
ChasingPotatoes17@reddit
My hobbies include hitting a punching bag, screaming into a pillow, running through the forest until I fully dissociate, and target shooting.
I’m coping fine, thank you very much. 😭
_R_A_@reddit
Can we go one day without a colonoscopy discussion?
Bitey_the_Squirrel@reddit
Doctor comes in like this but with a camera
bgva@reddit
I find myself constantly nostalgic for an era that ran from about 1987-99, so I’m the wrong one to ask.
And I understand there was a lotta problematic stuff back in the day, so I’d have to find a balance between the best things about that era and throw in a few good things I like about the 21st Century.
Narrow-Scientist9178@reddit
What do you make out of this?
Gen X: Well I can make a hat, or a broach, a pterodactyl…
Actual_Appearance246@reddit
We’ve lived through worse!
worksnake@reddit
It’s the 21st century on the internet. This joke is reaching “Why did the chicken cross the road? To get to the other side” status. I love Airplane! and all but like come on. This isn’t a novel use of the joke and you’re cross posting it like it’s just the darndest thing. It is not.
Unopposed_Weirdo@reddit
Josephthebear@reddit
No-Acanthisitta7930@reddit
Fucking boss level response. 5 stars.
mist_kaefer@reddit
No-Hospital559@reddit
Goodguybadd@reddit
thunderlips36@reddit
I'm tired, boss