It’s a lot of things. Climate hopelessness, a political system that seems hellbent on maintaining this negative feedback loop, yes, the economic situation, but also a soulless life under late stage capitalism where it’s proven over and over again you matter less than a line going up, we are commodified at every turn, our personality traits are nothing more than economic indicators or data points to sell us more shit…we live in a hostile world. And it’s hostile by humanity’s own making. And it’s soulless by our own making. Maybe humans used to die at 25 by a mountain lion attack more frequently, but some kind of purpose was found in that survival life. Depression and anxiety and a feeling of pointlessness are capitalism-made.
This problem seems so framed by experts as “why do these kids want to die?” When the question they should be asking is “what is society giving them to live for?”
I’m on a train trip across the U.S. today, so I will add what I see out the window: A landscape systematically strip-mined of beauty, meaning, and sense of place in service of extracting maximum profit from the people who have to exist in it.
We are detached from anything close to a life tied to meaning. All meaning was bought and sold. Our ancestors were turned into bricks to build the foundation of capitalism, and we aren’t even that important anymore. We’re the fuel that the massive engine of capitalism runs on. The machine is built. Now it’s running over capacity and more and more of us are needed to stoke the fires that keep the over-indulged engine running at max capacity to spit out some goddamn pitiful little line that means further excessive wealth for those who were born from the people who turned our ancestors into goddamn bricks.
It’s a lot of things. Climate hopelessness, a political system that seems hellbent on maintaining this negative feedback loop, yes, the economic situation, but also a soulless life under late stage capitalism where it’s proven over and over again you matter less than a line going up, we are commodified at every turn, our personality traits are nothing more than economic indicators or data points to sell us more shit…we live in a hostile world. And it’s hostile by humanity’s own making. And it’s soulless by our own making. Maybe humans used to die at 25 by a mountain lion attack more frequently, but some kind of purpose was found in that survival life. Depression and anxiety and a feeling of pointlessness are capitalism-made.
This problem seems so framed by experts as “why do these kids want to die?” When the question they should be asking is “what is society giving them to live for?”
I’m on a train trip across the U.S. today, so I will add what I see out the window: A landscape systematically strip-mined of beauty, meaning, and sense of place in service of extracting maximum profit from the people who have to exist in it.
Yup. That too.
We are detached from anything close to a life tied to meaning. All meaning was bought and sold. Our ancestors were turned into bricks to build the foundation of capitalism, and we aren’t even that important anymore. We’re the fuel that the massive engine of capitalism runs on. The machine is built. Now it’s running over capacity and more and more of us are needed to stoke the fires that keep the over-indulged engine running at max capacity to spit out some goddamn pitiful little line that means further excessive wealth for those who were born from the people who turned our ancestors into goddamn bricks.
And they ask, “why are kids so darn melancholy?!”