British Columbia

Saul Goodman. Thanks for your words and solidarity. I'm glad your friend did okay. I'm now in mid-life and I'll be processing all of it for the rest of my days. Thriving in my own way, etc. I've made peace with as much as I can at this point, and will continue. I don't know what's become of my siblings to be honest, I went full no-contact with a lot of that part of the family. I hear things every few years. They're all aged out now, some are doing better than others.

You nailed it with references to the economic system, parasitic billionaires, etc. When you dig deeper into PTSD or frankly any other mental health diagnoses it starts to become clear that modern society itself (or whatever elements of modern life you care to throw your stick at) are huge components of what's happening en masse. Hate to break it to all y'all doubters but we're not meant to live like this. Modern tech is awesome... I use it. I have a stable career because of it... but yeah. Watching the natural world around us collapse while we thrive (i.e. for a few decades, until we also collapse) is fucking with our collective consciousness. Whether some of us can acknowledge that at the moment or not... it's happening.

I don't know if Gen Z will pull us out of the dive but I hope something clicks with the vast majority of people coming up. It's extremely hard for most folk to turn away from a momentary feeling of security, safety, pleasure, abundance and comfort (even the manufactured, synthetic variety). Even if we know it's toxic and self-destructive. Ask your nearest addict what that's like... you might learn something. In strictly biblical terms, we as a species have created a pretty good mindfuck for ourselves.

Good times.