How do you guys cope with the fact that the world isn't getting any better?

kingthrillgore@lemmy.ml to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 469 points –

I'm really worried about the state of the US despite being a white male who was I'll coast right through it. I'll also accept "I don't" and "very poorly" as answers

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Some very good replies here. I share some of your worries, but with some recent issues I have also gotten a lot of practice seeing the good in things. Consider these 2 angles:

First is the Louis CK routine that includes “Everything is amazing and nobody is happy.” I think it comes down to humans getting used to things that work well and taking them for granted. Compared against most people who have ever lived, we are genius magical wizards who live in luxury. Unfortunately some of our magical technologies let us see the bad shit all around the world (and close to us) that our brains haven’t evolved to deal with.

Second is how absurdly unlikely and unique the existence of our consciousness seems. We are a collection of atoms forged in inconceivably massive exploding stars billions of years ago, aware of its own existence. We are literally the universe experiencing itself.

Today a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration, that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively, there is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves.

I mean, I can’t disagree with the comparison OR be insulted by it!

I don’t think about us a shared consciousness, or anything else spiritual that we can’t really verify. But we are indeed ancient star remnants experiencing consciousness, kind of like our computers are rocks that can do math. :)