The reality is setting in that people simply do not care about making the world a better place. It is breaking my heart, and I do not know how to reconcile my thoughts. I’m sorry to be such a downer here but I don’t know where else to share.
Perhaps the climate catastrophe, human suffering, and inequality is so large and so much out of people’s hands that even people who care have come to a state of learned helplessness. However, there are things within people’s control that doesn’t change. At work, I listen to a coworker frustrated about a simple problem. It would be a simple change to make this person’s job much less painful, but he “just works here”. It’s just such a dumb problem to waste hours of someone’s life on. To a certain extent, I can’t blame him, because a lot of people just work to survive.
I want to make the world a better place. A world where people have all there basic needs met, live in balance with nature, and have a right to self determination. A world where humanity strives to be the best version of itself. I can’t help but get sad or frustrated when I see something wrong. I can’t help but feel like I’m a downer to my friends when I point these things out. They don’t disagree with me, but it just seems like a depressing topic. People seem generally content to live their normal lives. In the same way, I can’t blame them. It won’t build a better future, but they deserve to be happy.
Maybe my coworkers are right, and that I’m too naïve. Maybe my friends are right, and that I’m too empathetic for my own good. I am envious that they can turn off the thing in their head that worries, or wants to make things better, and that they can just enjoy life. A more utopian future is generations away, or maybe never. If I can’t effect change, maybe I should find an outlet, or stop caring, or something. idk, sorry for yapping. if you’re reading this i hope you have a good day
Writing “self determination” was inspired from this in-progress book of speculative fiction I’m currently reading called “A Visitor to the Future”
https://www.chronohawk.com/a-visitor-to-the-future/
In the book society has two main rules. The right to self determination, and that people do not have the right to impede on other’s right to self determination. All other rules stem from these two main ones. I find the book very hopeful about the future.
Yeah, my point is that one person’s utopia can be another person’s dystopia. Everybody wants to live in a better place, but nobody agrees on what “better” actually means.
Some people crave structure and order, and don’t want to lose that in favor of increased self-determination. Others see structure and order as constraining and chafing, and see increased self-determination at any cost as freeing.
Quite a lot of people also have a hard time viewing things long-term. IDK where you’re at, but a lot of people live paycheck to paycheck here, and I think they’re stuck in short-term thinking as a form of survival.
Like I grew up poor poor, with shitty parents to boot, where you have so little self-determination that you just straight up learn that making plans only leads to disappointment. Long-term planning is a skill, and when kids grow up with parents that raid the piggy bank for beer money, they learn that planning is useless and spending all your pocket change on candy is better.