Evil is winning everywhere in the world

Depressed about the past. Pessimistic about the future. Too old to feel like anything can really get better. Hopeless.

This is such a common experience now. I think if we look around at this moment and are objective about it, we see clearly that this is the single most confusing time to be a young person, maybe ever.

Teenagers receive a terrible education and are left to waste all of their free time on porn and video games. Then very often their parents kick them out at 18 or they’re sent off to college where it’s really just more of the same and the college sees them more as an income scheme than as a customer let alone a student. Did you know colleges now consider 6 years to a bachelor’s degree a “success”? And then you become an adult and you’re handed this tray of utterly meaningless make-work jobs or else you can join the military and fight a pointless war in an Arab country.

All the while the culture is hostile to religion, to art, to poetry, to basically everything and you’re encouraged to waste your time on social media. Nobody really cares what you do, not even your parents and you’re not encouraged to investigate things like reading, let alone writing poetry or songs.

I know it’s a pessimistic view but I think we have to forgive ourselves in the end. We have to forgive ourselves for being aimless in what is the most aimless time to be alive ever and maybe even consider it a blessing that we are able to understand ourselves by 30 because so many will not understand themselves ever. So many are so far worse off. And is 30 not better than 35 or 40 or 45?

So what are your ambitions? Do you want to write? You can write now. You will probably never be Dante, but you can write now. Do you want to enter politics? You might never be Caesar but you can enter politics if you want. Do you just want a good career, some money, a family, some success and a life you can feel proud of? Well, all of that is still available to you. So I really don’t think you should regret quite as much as you think you do. I realize it can feel like you spend 5 or 10 years in a dark box and you got duller, sharper, wasted your time in there, but viewed in a different light, that box just as well could have been a crucible, and you can come out of it stronger, harder, more tempered, and with a clearer purpose.

I also have regrets and I complain about them, quite often. But at the end of the day, we have no choice but to move forward or to give up and die and I don’t want to give up and die.