does anyone else have a feeling of serious existential dread?

It sounds like you are depressed and anxious. I feel the same way. Get help before it becomes irreversible like it is in my case.

Ahh yes, it is so bad these days. So much worse than the great depression or multiple world wars. Even slavery couldn't top how bad things are.

What is making things so bad these days is this attitude of young people, and this is coming from a 'young' person. Mostly I think people have a lack of perspective and don't know or understand history very well.

I agree. The descent is palpable.

I don't tell them, but I feel bad for my kids and grandkids.

People can make the best of it, though.

I go to work, I pay my bills, I have a moderate social life - I do all the things the typical person my age is expected to do. I just think I'm having a completely rational reaction to a f*cked up world, whereas too many others are too numb, too dumb, or too medicated to sense, or admit, what's happening.

Congratulations you are better off than 90% of humans for all of human history. You need to look at your life in the context of this reality. Maybe get off social media and drop the fairy tale expectations about the world, its been a horrible place for most of human history and we are living in the best times there have ever been.

Yes, and where do these attitudes come from? Young people aren't just born lazy, entitled, sick, mentally ill, etc in such large numbers.

that's what I mean when I say there's a spiritual/moral rot at the core. everybody wants to talk about the symptoms, but when you indicate a possible source, you're the problem

Text 988 if you need help. That is then suicide hotline.

I spent the first eight years out of college in apartments, at crap jobs, then in a town of 3000 in a 60k house I purchased.That was 30 years agoThete are still good 60k houses in towns of 3000 in the US, and you can work remote.

You want dread? Take my back condition.

Be glad you didn't grow up in the great depression of the 1930s, followed by a global war. That was a messed up world. That's perspective. Be glad you're not living in a cardboard city in equatorial Africa.

It sometimes helps to look at what others are going through, or have gone through, to appreciate your own station in life.

My point was that things are not so bad and that it is entirely in youngs peoples head. Young people with this attitude are manifesting that 'things are so bad'. If you believe things are so bad for you then yes, they are bad for you. But that is not reality, it is simply something you believe to be true even though it is not. A good book I would recommend is Be Free Where You Are.

Find something you like doing and then find a group that's into it. Unless you live in the middle of nowhere (in which case, move unless isolation suits you), you should find positive, like-minded individuals to rally around. That can be a running club, play in a band, a yoga group, a hiking club, cooking club, rock-hunting club, theater, museums, a photography club, a books club, whatever.

Yeah, which you can do now easily. Good thing it's not 1976. Or 1876.

perhaps I need to clarify

I'm not saying my life is terrible. I'm talking about what all of you are talking about. how bad the rest of the world is.

do people not realize what just happened over the past 3 years? Hell, in 2020 there were estimates that 100 million worldwide would die from the lockdowns due to hunger - and those turned out to be conservative estimates.

we're all being played. the once-fighters are now resigned to their fate

I simultaneously 100% agree with "no longer care", and also 100% agree with "nope things are great".

There were people in the worst of times that made the most of it and were just fine. Hard doesn't necessarily mean bad or worthless.

Still, there are difficult times. It seems easy assess that we're on our way.

Then go do something positive. Donate money to a good cause, do volunteer work in your spare time. Be a part of the solution, even if there is no real solution. It might make you feel better.

What's happening in the past three years has happened before, and will happen again. Famine has been the norm throughout human history, not the exception. Plagues, wars, and poverty has been the norm throughout human history.

There's nothing unique about the last three years.

I do feel sorry for the younger generations. The boomers f... it up big time. Climate change, not enough affordable housing build, bad unaffordable healthcare and a lot more other bad things.

It's hard to stay optimistic with all of that going on.

Climate change? Yeah, only Boomers caused that.

Not enough affordable housing? Has that not been a possible problem for EVERY generation, depending on interest rates mostly, rather than on... Boomers.

Bad unaffordable healthcare? I'll take today's healthcare over that when all the Boomers were born.

Quit blaming Boomers.

What you are not realizing though is that what happened over the last 3 years would most certainly been far worse had it happened at any other point in the past. Not only would more people have died but in the past global crisis resulted in nations crumbling, dictators or warlords rising, mass famine, mass killings etc... The fact that in most countries things remained (and remain) more or less stable is unprecedented.

I am not one to drone on about 'the media' but it is most definitely selling this narrative and no its not just 'the news' doing it, its everywhere in media. Fear sells, 'doom scrolling' is a thing because it gets clicks. Young people are terminally online, its no wonder they think the world is a terrible place. Positivity in general is often considered 'toxic' by the young with all these kids circlejerking over their supposed ADHD and anxiety that is mostly self created.

Try logging off from twitter for a while and you'll see that the world will start to look mucho brighter to you