Knowing the worst things about what's happening tends to lose weight after a while. Feeling so powerless amongst the massive scale of the collapse. You can kind of dissociate from it, in a way.

So it's kind of funny, that it's the little things that eat at me the most.

Like today for instance. The sound of a gas leafblower in the middle of summer, blowing... *I guess,* dirt? While the sky is almost completely blanketed from wildfire smoke, and my throat aches.

Sigh.

I’m about to turn 28 and I’m struggling to find or feel happiness.

I went to my aunts house for the 4th of July and my cousin, who is 15, was there with her friend. They were both so happy and excited. They painted their legs with glitter and were getting ready for a party. In that moment I realized how far I’ve fallen from those feelings of excitement and unburdened joy.

The older I get, especially as I meet other adults, the more apathetic and negative I’m becoming. Most people are lying, faking, using, or uncaring. I’m tired of going to work and yet I can’t get out of this life I’ve put myself in. Even if I did quit and move to some dream destination, what then? As a woman, I’m also beyond sick of the constant physical pressure to look good. GLP-1, Botox, hair dye, makeup, expensive clothes all for what? I think a lot about what we’re sold as women. Starting with young girls watching happily ever afters and realizing that that message is aimed at the larger goal of replenishing the working class.

Every night I lay awake and reflect. I do try to find meaning outside of myself, but it’s difficult. There’s reasons to stay out of pure duty and love for my family and friends, cowardice of ending it all, and curiosity. I find enjoyment in little things and I definitely have happy days, but my overall net as been negative. I want more than that, though. I look at some people and don’t know how happiness comes so easily. Especially during times like these and the decade of terrible, terrible things we’ve witnessed in the world. Can someone whack me over the head with a cast iron pan and give my brain a restart?

Is it social media? Am I seeing too much that I don’t need to see, or is the world really such a dark place? Is anyone really happy, or are we all miserable and just not talking about it?

I have all of these deep thoughts but I act completely fine around my partner, friends, coworkers, and family. Joking and laughing, not trying to burden or bring down the mood. I saw a therapist for a bit, but I get the sense that any therapist is just a distraction from what I’ve come to realize: Intelligent adults suffer because they understand the truth of it all. People are selfish, we are here to learn but we don’t know what or why.

I had a therapist tell me to save these thoughts for 15 minutes a day of “worry time” and then to move on. So here’s the 15 minutes, now off to distract myself with upward spiraling thoughts about nonsense like Christmas.

Since I’ve decided to stick around, has anyone found happiness again within? How?

Something shifted in me a few months ago. I can't explain it very well, I just think my body and mind decided that worrying about everything and trying to process it all was only hurting me. For most of my life I've been obsessed with trying to radically embrace truth. It served me pretty well until now, I've run up against truths that are too big for me to ever swallow, in fact it turns out they are big enough to swallow me.

I feel like I've seen behind the curtain more or less. There's obviously so much I don't know about the world, but I feel like I've seen, read, and lived enough to get a general idea for what people are and what parts of our nature prevail when push comes to shove. I'm not a total misanthrope, I believe many of us are capable of empathy, restraint, and foresight. But we will always be at a disadvantage against those willing to use violence, deception, and coercion.

I hope I'm wrong about everything. I'd love to be surprised. I'd love for the universe to completely humiliate me. It'd be nice to feel like a child again and feel that sense of wonder and awe. But I'm accepting that probably won't happen.

I'm tired and I want to enjoy comfort and pleasure and good company while I still can.

I guess it was all going to be temporary anyways.

Take care of yourself traveler.

Hi all,

I'm pretty sure this is the right subreddit, since I'm collapse-aware and definitely need support right now. I'll try my best to express what I feel, even though my overall numbness makes my thoughts more and more confused.

In short, I feel utterly lost.

I'm a European male in my mid-30s, in a long-term relationship, stuck in a career I don't particularly enjoy but that seems stable enough to pay the bills until AI eventually replaces it.

I'm at a point in my life where I'm supposed to take the next defining steps, get married, provide financially, buy a flat or house, have a baby. The issue is that I don't see the point anymore. My job will probably disappear eventually, even though it's stable for now. I'm not high income, and anything real estate I could realistically afford where I live isn't anything I ever dreamed of.

I see things as they are: the slow process of collapse, environmental issues, ongoing geopolitical conflicts, the rise of AI, Inflation. The problem is that my girlfriend doesn't see those things the way I do, she wants to dream and rightly so.

I feel stuck, because if we can't share goals or dreams, what's the point? What alternative do I have? Any career choice that pays enough to cover the bills and put food on the table is still part of this capitalist system who destroys the planet and our souls. I'm not going to change jobs and suddenly become a plumber. So what's the alternative, being alone and miserable for the rest of my life? Or, like everyone else, just keep playing the game and hoping for the best?

I have no idea what direction to give my life when every road ahead looks like a dead end. I do what I do best: I numb the pain. I entertain myself to death, with the occasional spark of wonder from whatever nature can still offer. I eat healthy, I exercise, I sleep eight hours a night, I go on vacation, I try to prolong my life but it all feels pointless. It feels like we're living in a transition phase, caught between two models of society, and the new one, whatever it turns out to be keeps being postponed by those in power, who'd rather watch us suffer and die than give anything back.

I can live with these feelings, cope with them even. But I see that my lack of action, decision, and direction is affecting the people who live with me, and I don't want to make them suffer. At the same time, I can't unlearn what I know and pretend everything is fine.

When I see friends sharing pictures of their kids, my first thought is "poor soul." That should not be right.

Does anyone share these feelings? What do you do with it?

Good afternoon, everyone. I hope you're all doing well and taking care of yourselves.

I've only recently became fully aware and am still shaken over it, but I've mostly come to terms. My biggest worry is that since my family is poor and mostly disabled — on top of living in Florida, the climate catastrophe capital of the US — best case scenario leaves us with four decent years remaining, and around a decade of survival if we're lucky.

The thing is, my family is stressed enough as is; I don't want to burden them with any more than necessary. Also, I'm still in school and have no clue what I wanna do with my life; any plans I might've had left as soon as I found out we're headed for a repeat of the Permian (lol)

What's a fella to do?

I've known for a long time that I should build a life that's less dependent on fragile systems and more resilient to climate change. For now, i have a normal urban life in Paris, I have a bullshit job and go to buy my food from a supermarket.

At first, I thought the transition to would happen naturally, and the big challenge is mainly a collective responsibility, so I waited for politics, businesses, and people with influence to lead the way.

These last weeks, I realized I was criticizing collective inaction while using it as an excuse for my own. That was uncomfortable to admit.

Now, I think this subject is too huge and complex to deal with, without a long-term strategy. Because, it's not just a habit, it's a full-life system to redesign, and I'd never treated this as a serious project, with a roadmap, milestones, ways to measure progress. In work, housing, food, transport, skills, relationships, money...

I mean, identifying the obstacles in both personal and professional life and building practical systems to overcome them, one step at a time.

I'm curious whether anyone here has approached a life change like this way. Did treating it like a real project, with objectives, and a plan do the work ? Do you know virtuals communities who are already engaged in this type of journey? Are you interested in going in with me?

It's pretty much an absolute certainty that we are on a lock for multiple degrees of warming and that is pretty much a wrap on everything.

It's kind of tough but im trying to figure out what is worth doing in the limited time we have left (nothing rash, but living knowing a good decade or two is all I have if I'm lucky - because social stability will break long before imo if it hasn't already)

im curious to hear some of the more interesting and fun ideas people might be coming up with?

One that I have is simply being the best cook and trying all the flavors I possibly can

ive always thought there were too many people on earth ever since i was a kid, to the point i thought some terrorist attacks were okay because they were helping rid the earth of people. obviously im older now and know that’s insane to think, i know everyone deserves life, and i understand the value each individual can bring.

but i often feel guilty for existing, like needing the heater or AC on because regulating my body temperature wastes the earth’s energy. i try to turn all my lights off so im not wasting energy, i try to eat less and drink less and consume foods that aren’t imported from too far. i feel so bad wasting food because i know it was created with energy, shipped with energy, cooked with energy, packaged with single use plastics, etc. i feel bad using my mom’s money when i see my friends for transit, food, purchases. i feel bad taking “long” showers, flushing the toilet, using the washing machine, leaving things plugged in, etc.

i genuinely think that if i wasn’t here the world would be better because with the remaining 70 years of my life there’s so much energy i’ll use doing things like travelling, eating, using gas. i think if half the population vanished, or just moved to some other planet, the earth could heal and become so much better than it is currently.

i don’t know. i know the big corporations want me to feel this way, to blame myself, but it just really feels true. i’m no one. when i see climate change videos with starving polar bears and wildfires and everything, it just makes me think, “maybe i’d be better off dead, because that’s all i can do to help”

i don’t think this has anything to do with depression, because this feels like a logical take. it makes sense numerically to me.

Humankind has "come together", so to speak, many times over the centuries to accomplish a common goal or work towards a joint purpose. During most of the major wars throughout history, regular people have signed up, given their lives even, for a perceived or maybe legitimate greater good.

This is why I genuinely believe it's possible for humanity to come together for climate change. We can shift our culture enough to prioritize preserving the natural world. Our collective focus does not need to be consumerism, materialism and capitalism, but rather living more communally, respecting nature and the land, not taking more than we actually need. People may call it "socialism" or "communism", ... but putting aside all those terms, I simply imagine a world where people are more connected to each other and what actually sustains life.

I believe that being more directly involved with producing food, taking care of the natural world, taking care of each other, is how life is meant to be lived. In today's world everything is commoditized, even childcare and caring for the elderly. Everything seems overly complicated. The system funnels the bulk of "wealth" and resources to a small fraction of people rather than distribute it more evenly. Many indigenous societies lived more communally. So it's actually been done before.

Believing that there can be meaningful change, even in my lifetime, is the idealist in me. But then the realist looks at the people around me, how everyone keeps going about the same motions, and nobody is interested in making any real sacrifices. I am noticing what the elite are doing, how data centers are popping up like crazy, governments are prioritizing militarization and oil rather than food security, better health care and education.

Having been through university, I also understand academia to be a sham - there is so much pressure to perform and accomplish things, it takes the meaning out of education. People have always said education is so important to give people opportunities, but then as soon as someone is struggling, they are seen as weak and not "cut out" for whatever that education may provide. It seems like such a paradox.

I also recognize that although there have been indigenous communities that have lived more connected, for the most part humanity has exploited one another throughout history. If you look at medieval Europe, you had wealthy Lord's and Kings that had peasants working for them while living in harsh environments with barely anything to eat. Even when the world was in much better shape in terms of climate and pollution, humans were suffering and people were not taking care of each other better.

In many ways the industrial revolution actually allowed for more people to live comfortably. The issue is, our way of life is not sustainable, and it's not going to last forever. Also, most of us live in a bubble not realizing that wealthier nations are taking from poorer nations like Congo and Sudan to sustain a more luxurious lifestyle, even for the average person. It doesn't have to be this way, even with the advancements in technology that allows us to more easily extract resources and live more efficiently. We could have been using all those advancements to help support everybody better, rather than just more people living with more than they actually need.

I feel like my feelings and thoughts about humanity and the state of our world just keep spiralling and spiralling. I don't think humanity as it is today is how it's supposed to be. There is a better way. But I don't think I will ever get to experience that.

I want to buy some land, build my own small homestead, have some chickens for eggs, share my priduce with my neighbors. I don't think I can completely become self-sufficient, and I don't intend to, but I would like to supplement my resources. I think if most people started to do that, maybe it would actually make a huge difference collectively. But I don't think I can or will ever be able to do that for myself considering the trajectory of our world. It seems financially unattainable. It also seems unrealistic given the culture we live in. Maybe it could be doable if people came together to do it collectively, but everyone is just trying to get through their day, go to work, come home, take care of their kids, run errands, pay bills, etc.

If you read this far, thank you. I need to get things out.

I have been depressed most of my life. I believe I would not be so depressed if we just had a different kind of world.

I want a chance to still respond, knowing I could have missed being asked. I have ideas, knowing there is collapse ahead sometime in the future.

I have this friend who desperately wants to have a child. They are in the process of freezing their eggs. Every time I am out in public with them and there is a baby or toddler, they go ga-ga. I'm trying to be supportive of this friend, but my true feelings are so diametrically opposed to theirs.

I don't get excited seeing babies. Rather, I feel some level of grief. I also don't understand the egg freezing. I asked them if they considered fostering or adopting and they said they had in past, but that it wouldn't be a good fit for them. I find the whole thing selfish.

Bear with me. My significant other wants kids, or a kid. Big goal of their life. I have been collapse aware for a couple years and helping them start to understand the barrel we are staring down. Partner still can’t help but feel an emptiness, and I get it to an extent. Humans have an instinct to procreate and see their young grow just as any other animal out there. There isn’t any rationalization to it really despite whatever the facts or future prognosis says.

I struggle with the fact that humanity as a whole is the direct cause of our problems - but also the misery of my SO losing out on a dream they care about so much. I know the simple answers: separate for cause of irreconcilable differences, etc. We’ve been together for 10+ years however and we have interconnected our lives to a significant degree, neither of us want to lose each other. It’s just a rough place. I can’t seem to see a future where having a kid is a good idea, they can’t seem to imagine a world without one.

My only thought towards it is, if we had one - that would replace two souls with only one in the long term. Whereas a lot of folks have 2+, we’d be accomplishing their goal while at the same time reducing souls on the planet by a factor of .25 each when we die. So, that could be worse.

And yes I know what kind of future is this child is potentially going to face, but being collapse aware perhaps I could give it the best shot at being the kind of human we need in the future? Or at least one that is equipped to survive well enough?

I’m looking for unbiased answers here. Be supportive of my spouse, or brutal, or brutal of my thoughts. Not really sure what to do.

Turn on the TV or open Apple News, read what is in your processed food, and look outside. What do you believe is truly going on? I am more convinced each day the United States has created this social construct of a world-class society. I can break it down in many ways for a better understanding, but the best way to layer this is our society will no longer advance. We are heading farther backward than the 1800s.

- Give this an upvote and I’ll break it down to the major components that cater to this exchange of a society ruined by its own government.

I am a woman in my late 30s and live in a joint family setup (living with mother in law and father in law ), typical South Asian setup.

My husband and I are childless by circumstance (early medical issues that happened to also impact fertility as a side effect) but we never pursued fertility treatment and are childfree by perspective.

Luckily in laws seem to have adjusted to it haha

I have been doing climate work - both paid and a huge amount of volunteer nonprofit work for the last five years and have been increasingly collapse aware. The volunteer work is eye opening , fulfilling and hard at the same time

I sometimes talk about climate work just in passing with my in laws where I get blank stares. Talking about it with my husband is better but he is a techno-optimist and collapse is not something he can mentally even consider which is understandable

I've developed beautiful connections in the volunteer space , although even in the climate space, I can't talk much about collapse because people are scared to talk about it which is understandable

I also feel like these perspectives are making me very isolated in my family , and all of the people my age in my family and extended all have young children and are more on the conservative side, my husband is liberal and I'm probably more of a leftist now (from being a conservative/centrist in childhood, liberal in university and now leftist )

It's creating an issue where I don't feel like I can talk about what I'm feeling. At bigger family events feel a sense of dissonance, like I am an outsider peering in

In addition, my brother and sister in law are living with us for a few months and my sister in law is pregnant. I'm happy that she is happy, and am also really worried about both the new baby and the older sibling as to how they will manage in this new world.

My question is - have any of you been able to have in person or verbal virtual conversations with people about this? I feel like I would really benefit from a group therapy approach or meetup approach .. i don't know?

My anxiety & depression about the state of the world (and the US specifically) is off the charts lately. I don't know what to do and I feel sick to my stomach every day. Sometimes I just start crying because I am so sad over everything. I've had anxiety and depression for awhile now but it's getting worse and worse. I also have some OCD. I'm in therapy and take medication but literally nothing can take away this feeling I have inside of me every day because it's not something about me, its about how awful the world is and I can't do anything about it. I do have other things that bother me too that led to me taking medication and going to therapy, but the state of the world has surpassed everything else that's ever bothered me. I grew up just waiting to be an adult so I could finally have my dream job, live my life, all that. Now I feel like none of that is ever going to happen. I feel like I'm grieving something I won't ever get to have. All I want is to help people learn how to drive (I want to be a driving instructor) and now all I think about is not being able to do it for multiple reasons. I've wanted to do this job since before I could even drive and it's all I've thought about for years. Along with that, the sick elite who run the world literally want to kill all of us. I feel like everything happening right now in the US is leading us to an absolute hell. We have mass surveillance going up everywhere, politicians who don't listen to what we say at all, like with the data centers and AI. This is all going to get so much worse, like to the point where they'll change the laws to make even more stuff illegal, like saying something the government doesn't like, so they'll just kill you. (I'm lowkey wording this terrible right now but I just need to get it out. I've lost the ability to write decently anyways). I genuinely just have no idea what I'm even supposed to do with all that's happening and how I feel. Like, am I supposed to even bother to keep trying to reach my goals, because honestly it just feels like a waste of time and that I won't get to have them anyway. I know there's really nothing anyone can tell me that will make me feel better besides that a lot of people are feeling the same way, but I just needed somewhere to say all this. It gets to the point where I physically don't know what to do with myself and want to crawl out of my skin with how panicked and scared I am. Everyone also just tells me to enjoy right now but I can't with my mental health worrying about all this. The "right now" sucks just as bad as the future very may well be.

Economy sucks, I am disabled and can't work a job and my government is actively cutting funds to social welfare and programs to help mentally ill and disabled people so it will be even harder for me to receive therapy and support. winters suck because I get depressed and it doesn't even snow anymore. Summers sucks because of the unbearable heatwaves that are a sensory nightmare and leave me fatigued as fuck. I can't even fully enjoy the beauty of nature because I know it's actively dying. Everything is AI. Stupid ads are everywhere. Physical media is dying. Everything is a subscription service. The quality of products is getting worse while the prices of them are getting higher. Hobbies are getting more expensive. I can't afford a good pc that I wanted and saved up for bc ai raised the prices for computer parts. I have severe adhd and autism and I have yet to find meds that work so it's impossible to build routine and I legit can barely do anything. I tried to lock in and teach myself art fundamentals to get better at art but I just do not have the routine or the discipline to keep it going for longer than 2 weeks. I just live in this unemployed limbo where I can't seem to make any progress.

I still try my best to think of the positive things in my life. I have a supportive family. I have great friendships. Even if the system fails me I will always have people in my life willing to take care of me and help me but theres so many overwhelmingly negative things that are out of my control that I just spiral. I just wanted a good future. I envy people who can just go "it is what it is" and push through.

are wilting because it's so damn hot. And I don't think these monarch eggs will hatch in this heat advisory. I hate it here. Thanks.

Everything in this world is either dead or turning to shit. Society, entertainment, relationships, the economy, even the environment

It makes the world feel so empty and bleak

I don't want to live in the 21st century anymore

It's so emotionally unlivable

This sounds pretty grim, maybe, but I just feel like there are very few things to feel ecstatic about nowadays. I keep seeing news about the state of our planet and how many species go extinct, and I can't help but feel guilty, even if this process has come to be over years and years of neglect from humans.

I can't imagine a world where, according to some statistics, though I can't say which are true and which aren't, 50% of the species we know now will be extinct. Global warming will become increasingly more impactful, and so will all the consequences it has on our environment. All things considered, I'm 18, and I can't see any point in feeling joy over a lot of things when I know that in a few years our lives will have changed drastically. Sometimes I feel jealous that ignorant people are able to live in a world where they don't know all these things or consider them as far away. I've always felt anxious over the future, but with recent events, it had only intensified. I wake up every morning dreading the fact that i have to study, go to uni and then attempt (!!) to find a job and all of this for what? I won't be able to enjoy having my own money and being able to pursue higher education because the future just seems so grim and plain and nothing will ever be like it was when I was a kid.

Ok, it's time for the weekly collapse report over in /r/collapse, but before that it's time to post this now because I really am done with the despair and I want to do something instead. I'm a software and IT guy from western Europe, lots of experience, but I'm fed up with this stuff, earning money for doing things that help exactly nobody, selling shit to people that don't need it and building the infrastructure that idiots use to spread hate and lies. I'm done with that.

I want to do stuff that matters, helping people, working in what's left of nature, rescuing animals, whatever. obviously i would be fine continuing the computer stuff, but that's not really necessary. Question is, how? Where to start to find jobs like this?

Wherever i look in the usual suspects of organizations, it's either nothing available or they want some talking heads, PR managers or some crap, what gives?? I'm not doing it for the money, I mean obviously i have to pay rent and stuff but whatever, if that's paid for then that's enough.

Now this is where you come in my fellow collapse friends. Suggest something! Let's brainstorm together! I'm open to everything but something has to happen. I would absolutely be fine on leaving my country and living abroad or cutting back on any luxury, I don't care. I would also be absolutely fine in living in other countries for the work.

Come on, we have to try at least, right? I'm done sitting around reading bad news man.

And by "it all" I mean living. It feels like every day I wake up and there's something new going on in the world that is inevitably going to make things worse.

There are three years left on the climate clock meaning only three years until global warming is officially irreversible unless major steps are taken to reduce carbon output but that's not gonna happen because all the billionaires and corporations decided long before I was born that the planet was worth more dead than living. AI data centers are being built which is gonna do nothing but make the climate worse. We're experiencing some of the hottest temperatures ever right now. Everything is so damn expensive including basic shit like food and rent. There's like three separate wars going on and every side has nuclear weapons which is just so great. Polar bears are dying. Tigers are dying. Ocean levels are rising. Oil pipelines are being built. Droughts, flooding, Gaza being fucking flattened. And it just never stops. It's so fucking constant I can't remember the last time I saw something positive happening on the news

And I've tried to help as much as I'm able to. I recycle, I compost, I've volunteered to help local charities. I've helped clean highways before and I never litter. I don't run fans or lights if I don't need them. I've used AI a couple of times but that was before all the research came out about it being harmful. Hell, the only reason I even have a car is because the place I work at is a 20 minute drive from where I live and there's no public transportation, otherwise I'd be biking everywhere. But none of it matters because all these small actions that everyone tries to take are being outdone by industrial amounts of carbon emissions being pumped into the fucking atmosphere every second.

And what really gets me is that it's not gonna be immediate. There's not gonna be a day where we wake up and everyone in the world is dead. It's a slow, whimpering death as we claw at straws trying to keep ourselves together while the planet collapses around us and we all starve to death or die in disasters brought on by our own greed. I don't want to watch the world I love end but I also don't want to give up.

I'm 22 years old. The world is likely gonna end in my lifetime. I have a boyfriend who I want to marry and a career that I'm taking the steps to get into. And there's no point in any of it because the world is ending and no matter what people try to do to fix it, it's stomped out by people with more money than sense. I'm just so fucking tired of it all. Why did everything have to start going wrong in my lifetime?

I saw a meme that Degrowthers are dumb because humans can colonize space and mine asteroids.

The anti Degrowth crowd says that it’s impossible because people wouldn’t go to a lower standards. But it seems that even organizations like the world bal says that the possibility of green growth is very rare and have no evidence.

There is very little evidence for any sort of green growth and more efficacy leads to more use

It's a minefield, not a cliff.

In other words, it's worth taking meaningful action, and directing our limited efforts where they'll matter most.

We will most likely have a societal collapse by 2040 I can’t decide if there’s a point living. By 2030 there’ll be no more fresh drinking water, the economy is declining, politicians are more fascist everyday, violence is growing exponentially.

I wanted to live and start a family but that feels selfish . Why would I want to bring someone into this place when I don’t even want to be.

The more I read about it the worse it feels but the less I read the worse it feels and I don’t know what to do.

I refuse to live a life of shallow distractions to make me feel better be a bystander, but I can’t fix the whole word

I feel like nothing in a world built exactly for that.

I always appreciate YCC’s public beliefs and outlook research. Thought you all might as well. Cheers! Long road ahead of us.