Don’t worry. It all gets normalized. Think back. You’ll find it reassuring.
Your parents told you about it, just like mine told me about World War II and the Depression. Believe it or not, they were actually sentimental about those things. “We were all united!” they’d say. “We were poor but happy!” they’d say.
They were neither but the mind plays tricks just like your mind is playing tricks on you today.
The present is better than the past. You just can’t see it yet. But you will. I’ll help you through.
The first thing you need to understand is, I’m not the enemy. I hear what they say about me. And I can see the same attitude in you, the way you look at me. But I’m here to help. Really. Listen. Be patient.
So, think back. There was war and violence. Groups against groups. My team versus your team. And the stakes were high—money, power, survival.
Then it ended. Technologists gave us smart phones (remember them?) that essentially lobotomized us while the old patterns continued.
We just ran with it. Yeah, we were mildly disturbed that we might be destroyed someday by intelligent robots or our own abuse of the planet. But we just kept going. Why the hell not?
Is that couch comfortable? Here’s a better pillow.
Then our scientists and engineers did it: they made food, clothing, shelter and medical care cheap and, no—free. There was no requirement to work. Personal wealth was optional. Who needed stocks. Who needed an economic system? What’s the point of hating or resenting anyone?
Suddenly, we were all free—and lost in uncharted territory. Most found it difficult to adjust. Others—like you—found it impossible.
More water?
What happens when what you defined yourself by for most of your life—your job and your ideology—becomes irrelevant? What happens when these things no longer make sense or no longer exist? You fall apart.
And that’s where you are today. Life is too good to be true and it’s broken you.
Buck up, man! You’ve got everything you need to live! Now you just need to do the living. But what does that mean? What do you need to do?
You’ve got food, clothing, shelter and healthcare. You don’t need to work and there’s nothing you could product that anybody must have. Money is a joke.
You need to do things or create things that have meaning, not value.
I’m not saying you won’t still have problems. As long as you live, you’ll have problems.
But now those are existential problems, psychological, not physical. And yeah, there’s been a boom in suicides in recent years—people who can’t live without the structure of jobs, people who need to win competitions, people who crave the idea of being better or more important than others.
But you’ll get used to it. We all will.
Hungry? Because if you are, I can easily get you any kind of snack you want. Not a problem. Why should it be?