does anyone else have a feeling of serious existential dread?

Say you aren't overtaken by the Taylor Swift craze without saying you aren't taken over by the Taylor Swift craze.

Sounds like you’re resisting ‘what is’. Ride the wave, don’t piss and moan about how you didn’t like the break.

I have been thinking about you comment for hours, most here seem to conveniently dismiss it. Here’s the view of another old head: you may be the generation left holding the bag, I have seen my generation just kicking the can down the road on these issues.

So, since we are just a fluke of the universe, perhaps there is an upsides to all this. No worrying about retirement, not having a family and all the crap that goes with that, & to hell with recycling and carrying about the planet. I will leave it up to you how to deal with the remnant of wealthy people. As the Monty Python song goes - “always look on the bright side of life”.

And to all you out there who are abhorred with my advice, you better get to work making this place habitable for all these kids, that means carrying about them like they are your own.

thanks for your honest response.

many of the responses seem to imply that I think, because this period of the world is bad, that there have never been worst points in history, or that I simply need to focus on myself more and accept that which I cannot change.

these responses would seem to only further validate my point...

What is your point?

Year 536.

earth.com

Why 536 was named the worst year to be alive

It all started in 536 AD, or as one Harvard professor and historian describes it, the worst year in human history.

Link:www.earth.com/news/536-worst-year/

We're in the midst of the Greatest Depression, the opening stages of World War III, and slavery is still around, the slaves are just enslaved by races/religions/countries that Leftists don't want to criticize.

You are so welcome!
And thank you for being strong and voicing your thoughts! It must be crushing to have this clarity & then receive these responses that just don’t get it, especially those that are well meaning. For me the really sad stuff is that our problems are baked into our economic systems.

I do think it is healthy to occasionally doom scroll, but balance that with fun stuff ( I hike almost daily). Hope you know you are not alone in all this, hang tough!

Not serious, just quasi-serious. One should never be too serious, unless praying or talking to God.

You live in a time where you could die 5 seconds from now, or where medical advances could prolong your life for longer than anyone who has lived today. The ending is always the same for everyone of us humanoids however. At some point, you will not be alive as you know your present self here on this earth. Cherish these fleeting moments. They might seem long now, but someday they won’t when they’re all gone. Show respect and compassion for everyone on this inexplicable journey with you right now. No one truly knows where we came from or where we’re all going. I know the Armageddon scenarios are there, climate, nuclear, guns, politics, solar flares, volcanos, wildfires, etc. Then there are humans and they have the capacity for good deeds. Try to be one of those voices. Find a difficult or problematic situation and do your best- use your skills and your intellect to make it better. If you do that I think you’re respectfully doing everything you can do to make things a little better than they might be right now and that’s all we can really hope for when a lot of things are really out of our hands.

This. I empathize with the OP, but anyone who seriously reflects on human history should realize how easy we have it right now. It’s honestly probably part of why people are so depressed and anxious. We need more serious/concrete threats to deal with

We do 'have it easy' right now compared to historically but also, putting it into perspective like that often simply worsens guilt or current feelings and doesn't improve it or provide any kind of solution.

We know that it's terrible for someone who is living in a war-torn country - it's awful. "Think of the starving children in Africa" and all of that stuff that's said whenever anyone wastes food. But I'm not sure that that line of thinking is incredibly productive.

It's good to be grateful and I'm grateful every day to have things like running water, shelter, warmth, food and so on. but equally it's important to recognise that things HAVE declined. People are NOT happy. This isn't just limited to the US or UK. There has been a vast change. People are ill... not happy. Society is sick in part.

There was a story in the press recently about a study on girl guides (similar to scouts).

girlguiding.org.uk

Girls Attitudes Survey 2023

Girlguiding's Girls' Attitudes Survey reveals girls' happiness levels have significantly declined over the past 15 years

Link:www.girlguiding.org.uk/about-us/press-...

The number of girls who describe themselves as very happy has decreased significantly in the past 15 years (40% in 2009 down to 17% in 2023), with the steepest decline in girls aged 7-10 (57% in 2009 compared to 28% in 2023).

89% of girls and young women aged 7-21 feel generally worried or anxious (2023) compared to 78% in 2016.

I was surprised more wasn't made of this. I thought it was shocking. That's how kids feel? (I know a lot of studies aren't accurate but this does indicate a general trend that I feel is reflective of reality.) I'm sure there are similar figures for boys of that age, it's just this one was in the press in the past few days. And for men and women who are older. There's just a general feeling of malcontent and unhappiness that wasn't here before.

Think back to 2000... mid-2000s.... 2009... there just wasn't this sense then, this feeling. So much has changed. Things WERE different then - for most people.

Yes, of course, we're still very very lucky to be living in the countries that we do (look at the living situations some people have, constant threat of death) and in the time period that we live in. But that really doesn't mean that everything is OK.

I think it's possible that the internet isn't very helpful for a lot of people in terms of human communication. It's an unnatural way to communicate and so much is lost. It has replaced a lot of things for a lot of people. It also has led to a different way of communication and news that I won't get into here. I'm not sure we were ever meant to be this inter-connected. We wouldn't have known about a fraction of these events 100 years ago. I'm not saying that ignorance is bliss, but I am saying that it's possible (and very easy) to get completely over-loaded by it all. In fact, I'd go as far to say that in order not to be in that state you now have to actively try to avoid it.

There are still options though as people have helpfully stated - get offline, don't read the news as much, focus on old-school hobbies, do things in real life, move to a different area, take advantage of everything that's available to you. Those options still exist, just they are clouded out a little bit now.

Jesus urged us to pray all the time.... you are only searching secular solutions.

I'm 35 and have basically wasted the last 15 years. I had to defer my medical school place this year and had a full on meltdown out of frustration. I was smashing things up and walked out in the middle of the night. Just got to get my head down now and try to turn things around. I will likely be on medicaiton for the forseeable future just to stay stable. That's what years of frustration and depression did to me. If I had a career and the courage to emigrate, I would.

If you're an American earning 6 figures you might have it easy. I live in the UK and have an MSc in nuclear engineering which (if I'm lucky) can net me a job earning £30k. Wages are garbage, the jobs market is saturated, house prices are too high and cost of living is too high. If I could emigrate to America for a well paid job, I would.

"Boomers" have little to do with the present state of things. Climate-you want to blame something? Go back to the discovery of fire. Humans cannot survive this planet well without some form of it. Conflict-go back to competing tribes of prehistorical human forms convinced that warfare rather than cooperation was a necessity for survival, etc.,etc. The basics of existence have not changed, just the appearance.

It is undeniable that the world is a much safer place for most Westerners now than it was 100 years ago. The difference is that today we have told ourselves that suffering, hardship, and loss are abnormal and the product of some dysfunction that can be corrected. This is not always the case.

Secondly, we no longer have a shared sense of eternal spiritual authority, meaning a common belief in God. We are, metaphysically speaking, drifting through space, with nothing to tether us to terra firma. So we see ourselves as alone in the universe.

Because we are no longer reaching for the eternal, we tried desperately to content ourselves with distraction and worldly pleasure. It is a fruitless quest, and more and more people are living in existential dread of death and judgment.

What is the solution.

“The earth is the Lord’s, and everything in it, the world, and all who live in it; for he founded it on the seas and established it on the waters.”
‭‭Psalms‬ ‭24‬:‭1‬-‭2‬ ‭NIV‬‬

"Leftists dont want to..."?! So you do have allegiance to a political pov? Your world-pain is slanted to and against some principles and precepts? And you claim to be experiencing existential nausea?

No, and you probably don’t either, OP. I think it’s trendy to say “the world is on fire” right now or otherwise suffer this thing you call “existential dread.” But it’s just a trend. You’re probably just a bit sad and/or aimless at the moment, it’ll pass. The likelihood you really are experiencing something do extreme as “existential dread” is very low. In fact, there are probably certain ideological movements that are becoming prominent lately that actually benefit from people thinking they feel “existential risk dread” and even promote the error in people.