Millenial here, I had an existential crisis in my mid to late 20s because the job market was shit, my romantic relationships were in shambles, and prospects for the future looked grim. I managed to shake myself out of it and find a path forward after moving and changing a lot of my expectations for how life should be. I realized that I’d been lied to my entire life about what was important and how to achieve it. I realized that I was struggling so hard because the path laid out for you is one that benefits owners and rulers, not yourself.
Nothing in America has gotten better since then, and all those factors are worse. Jobs are less stable, less interesting, and lower paying. Relationships are even more alienated and hard to form. The future looks totally fucked.
I wouldn’t call it a midlife crisis, but I had another big breakdown in early 2020 as I realized that the pandemic response was indicative of how we were collectively going to handle all the other issues of the 21st century: climate-change-enhanced disasters, wars, famines, and plagues. All my faith that humanity could pull together in crisis to handle the looming apocalyptic challenges evaporated from seeing people hoarde toilet paper and cheer on mass death from avoidable disease.
So now I’m just trying to enjoy the downfall. Either I’m wrong and the hateful, spiteful, shitty people are correct in which case I guess there’s nothing to worry about. Or I’m right, people suck, and I’m privledged to have been born at the very peak of human progress before the whole species dies back to the low fuedal periods, if not extinction. Might as well enjoy the ride!
