Well Keep Living And Well Learn To Love It - Tumblr Posts

You know what, I actually have more to say on this:

It’s natural to feel upset, angry, and sacred regarding all the terrible things happening all over the world right now. In fact, those feelings are vitally important to have, to prevent yourself from becoming numb and desensitized to tragedy. But if all you ever feel is upset, angry, and scared, and if all you can ever think about is The Bad Stuff, and if you truly want humanity to go extinct because you believe that humans are inherently evil, and if you genuinely believe that society will collapse in the near future… that’s not a natural response to current events. That’s depression, and it’s caused by a chemical imbalance in your brain, not by current events.

If you’re struggling with doomerism of this degree, I would urge you to seek professional help, if it’s within your means. But if you’re unable to do so, I have a few suggestions based on some things that helped me escape the trap of nihilism:

Opening Up: Confide in a loved one who you trust to support you about how you’re feeling, and do not spare them a single gory detail. This is also a good resource on alternatives to therapy.

The News: Schedule one day a week where you don’t look at any source of news about current events, from the moment you wake up to the moment you go to sleep. I promise you are not a bad person if you aren’t 100% tuned in to every single issue all of the time.

Online Spaces: Leave every single group/forum that doomer-posts, even the ones you have friends in because your mental health comes first. Block tags—yes, even the ones that you think would make you a horrible person for blocking—and people liberally, and unsubscribe from downer YouTube channels, no matter how informative they are. Join groups/forums with an explicit focus on positivity. This is a great list of positive subreddits. Join online communities centered around aspects of your life that are inherently positive, such as a hobby, a fandom you love, or niche scientific topic that fascinates you. Avoid online communities centered around aspects of your life that are NOT inherently positive, such as illnesses/disabilities and political beliefs.

Distraction: It’s a cliche piece of advice, but learning a new skill is a great way to ground yourself in the present and focus on what you can control. Pick up a new hobby, or learn a new language, or reorganize your entire bedroom, or any other simple activity that takes place entirely offline.

Community: It’s another cliche, but getting involved in your local community really does help ground yourself. If you’re in school/university, join a low-commitment club with a flexible schedule. If you’re not in school/university, get a membership ship to your local library. See if they have a book club you can join, or if you can volunteer there, or simply go to mingle with the other patrons in your free time.

Nature: Spend some time away from urbanized areas. It doesn’t need to be a full-hiking trail—you could go the lake at your local park, or literally just wander through a patch of forest on the side of the road.

If you can rediscover your love for this planet and the people on it, you will find that it’s worth fighting for. And if you join the fight, we’ll be one step closer to wining.

Anyway, not-so-friendly reminder that nihilism/doomerism/accelerationism is a conspiracy theory meant to keep people complacent and docile in the event of an authoritarian regime, and the online Left really needs to start shunning these groups with the same vehemence that we shun radfem/terf groups.

The biggest threat to systemic evil is hope, and this nonsense “the world will never get better, so why bother trying to make it better” ideology literally exists to serve those systems. The doomerism movement is pro-capitalist, pro-fascist, pro-authoritarianism, etc. because they accept these systems as inherent to the nature of humanity, unable to be changed… which is exactly what the fascists running the system want. After all, why resist the rise of evil if evil is always inevitable? Why fight to make the world a better place if the world is just going to end soon anyway? Why not just stand aside and let the authoritarians do their thing? It doesn’t even matter anyway, right?

The point is, the Left is far too tolerant of doomerism, and it’s driving me insane.