I asked Grr this morning if she had any “good news” sites she visited, I find myself in need of an optimism injection. Her response, RAD, a local animal rescue organisation, and even that she said is a bit of a mixed bag.
That’s how the world feels at the moment, full of sad stories with the occasional “oh wow, someone got adopted”, and then we all hang on to make sure it sticks and that the lucky creature behaves themselves.
There’s an absence of permanence, of predictability, other than this background gut feeling hanging around like the smell of a blocked drain, that ‘something is wrong and I’m sure I could / should be doing something to improve it, or at least prepare for it”.
The weird thing is that normally with this pall of gloom I’d have to supply what date it is, and what the event is thats got me under a cloud, but there just seem to be an endless procession of them, … like an ever extending timeline of the same level of awfulness. And it’s not that prior worries get solved or addressed, they all just blend into the new ones, like a never ending line of things to be worried about that I cannot feasibly address.
I’ve lived my life believing I’m an optimist, and cannot put my finger on a time that might have changed, but realistically looking at my inner musings, they’re not optimistic.
Now, late September 2022, and –
- Putin is waving the nuclear baton supposedly to protect the soon to be (democratically ??) voted on recently re-introduced to the fold of the motherland pieces of Ukraine .. and Crimea
- As an aside, I have a close friend I love dearly who sees this all as Zelensky’s fault
- Truss and her chancellor, barely 3 weeks into the job (at least 10 days of which were taken up with mourning the passing of the queen) have just reduced taxes to the rich, in the midst of a cost of living crisis affecting the poor, and promised to pay electricity bills over 2500GBP for everyone (which isn’t really going to make anyone cost conscious when they pass that threshold), and fund it by … its not clear.
- Eskom .. I don’t even know anymore. I have friends who’s manufacturing businesses can’t function because of the preceding and post 2hr’s necessary in addition to load shedding to get their equipment running. Locally, I look at almost all the businesses spending the equivalent of at LEAST one persons salary to try and keep their electricity on
- Climate change is … in some peoples minds still a fallacy. Yet Fiona has just klapped parts of Canada, and Ian is on route to be “the harshest storm in at least the last 100 years to hit Tampa”.
- Recession. World wide
- Quiet quitting, and now quiet firing are hot topics amongst HR managers, and one of the articles which I best understood recently pointed to the upcoming chaos more likely to impact white collar than blue collar workers, .. I happen to agree
The list is longer, .. way longer. But it illustrates why I’m looking for help finding good news.
At the same time, I’m looking around at people who seem to be going on with their lives as if nothing is amis, and I’m wondering if I’ve fallen down some conspiracy theory rabbit hole.
Here I am contemplating growing vegetables and keeping a few extra tins of baked beans in the cupboard, and my neighbours are complaining that they’ve just been fined for their car parked on a grass verge facing the wrong way.
I am truly battling to reconcile what I perceive to be happening on the planet, and how many / most people are behaving day to day, and I don’t know if I’m reading the wrong stuff, or if people are ostriches.