Piko

The world feels on the brink of another big war, has for years now. The 24 hours news cycle is depressing, it feels like there's a new disaster every day. Wars, assassinations, hungry, suffering or dead children, floods, forest fires, famine. Politics has descended into madness seemingly everywhere, the tiny glimmers of hope are few and far between. Nationalism, saber-rattling, glee for the "enemy"'s demise. Dehumanizing caricatures I've only known from world war 2 propaganda are posted online by ordinary people - or just big bot networks?

AI has not turned out to be the time saver or even that benefical to the average human, it makes many things worse - social media feeds, trustworthiness of news sites, dating apps, job searches. It's hallucinating and tricking old people into new scams. Attention spans are shrinking rapidly, babies with tablets watching inane cartoons so the parents have half an hour to deal with everything else.

There's microplastic in everything, fish are dying, we're mining the seafloor for manganese nodules, disrupting ecosystems on fresh new levels. The amazon is still being cut down at alarming rates. "Linkedin lunatics" are boasting about their 16 hour days and how they made the orphan grinding machine more efficient in Q2.

Enshittification is rampant, yet prices still rise. Products lose functionality and longevity, AI is crammed into everything, ads everywhere. Which of these 30'000 companies do you want to share your cookies with? Billionaires meddle in politics more openly than ever, fly to space, hoard the wealth. Personal data is mostly open source.

Personally, my employer is cutting positions but not products. I have no time to develop new skills at work or make innovative contributions. All we can do is not let it get worse, patch bugs and have endless meetings about how we can deal with the additional workload that are the result of less people and more meetings. The "team spirit" is mostly gone, everyone is cynical and there's a lot of policing everyone else for slacking off.

My partner of 14 years is severely depressed and not sure if she wants to stay in the relationship. I am helpless and frozen by anxiety. The only good things I am managing to do are going on walks with a trashbag and grabber and clean the neighborhood, donating some money (when I'm reasonably sure it'll help and reach the intended cause), be mindful of my environmental and societal impact, be friendly and courteous to people in public, use public transportation, donate blood, say hi to pets, vote. It doesn't feel like it's enough but I am so tired.

I should put money aside for the future, yet I'm not confident that in 30+ years we still have a working financial system. I should develop new skills, yet I lack the motivation to really get into anything.

There's so many things I would want to do (laser cutting, 3d printing, making or joining an indie game, get back into lifting weights, MOC lego models, mentor younger developers, make music, help immigrants, write a novel or screenplay or just a blogpost, make other people happy, clean up the basement, volunteer, ...) but I lack the motivation and know it won't lead to anything since I'll lose interest after a couple of days and then I have another unfinished project and/or tools taking up space.

This has turned into a rant. Sorry. I'm not depressed, just ... numb and anxious. Thank you for reading. I sincerely hope you are doing OK or better. Here's hoping for better times.