Member-only story
HUMANS 101
Who’s Doing Well At a Time Like This?
“Thank you for your email. With the messy state of the world, burnout doesn’t quite seem like the right word. I’ve been struggling.”-OOO Message
How would you say you’re doing right now? Struggling. Burnt out. Stressed. Traumatized. Every word doesn’t seem nearly enough for the moment. Even the most acerbic, pessimist storytellers among us are grasping to find the right words. There are no right words.
The thing about the past two-plus years is
The thing about the past two-plus years is
That blank space. That black hole. A blinking cursor where we wait with bated breath for the story to take a turn. We’re used to “dire straits” right before the hero rallies and saves the day. Fairytales and comic books. We’re not used to this. Nobody is.
Call it dystopia. Call it hell. Call it injustice, anger, grief, dread — it barely covers where we are. We can’t imagine our way out of this, and the only people still daydreaming of a brighter future have vastly different ideas of what utopia means. And the ironies…sweet Jesus, the ironies.
The evangelical Christians who know we had to transport baby formula around the world still doggedly pursuing the ability to force people to give birth. The white nationalists who proudly fight against any sort of progress while poverty doesn’t give a flying owl’s fart about the color of their skin. The Millennials and Zoomers reaching out in record numbers for therapy to cope with a world that is increasingly unsurvivable. And that’s just in the last three months.
People in past times experienced this amount of suffering spread over a lifetime. We snort it in a week. We’ve lost jobs and family members. Postponed opportunities and adult milestones. Watched murder after murder on a small black square. A man on the street gasping his last breath. A son out for a casual jog. The elderly going to church. Adults grocery shopping. Children learning in class. We’ve become so used to the predictable process of murder, temporary outrage, thoughts and prayers offered that the latest school shooting was followed by the NRA convention….. *checks notes* three days later.
