Unset

As you grow older it becomes quite difficult not to get set in your ways. We hold onto ideas that no longer serve us, we hold onto beliefs that are not longer true, and we practice behaviours that don't give us the results we think they do. Self-reflection and introspection are important in life but they form a much more integral part of our psyche when we are younger, when our beliefs are still forming, when we haven't made our minds up yet as to how we view the world, when we still hold some degree of hope for change and optimism that even if it doesn't come straight away, some day it will come.

You can call it cynicism, or even pessimism, or simply call yourself jaded, whatever term you use to describe the mentality, ultimately the hallmark is the belief that nothing will change. This is what we fight against as we grow older, and our degree of mental resilience can often determine the outcome, with lower resilience creating a self-fulfilling prophecy where we spiral down into doom and gloom. A high degree of resilience allows us to endure with a positive outlook even when there is little reason or even none at all that we can draw upon to justify that outlook.

I think from an objective standpoint when you subtract emotion and judge humanity with nothing but logic and reason it is fair to say that the bad outweighs the good. Some people with relentless positivity will object to that statement and that objection in itself I would view as a hallmark of toxic positivity, defined by the delusion that dismisses the reality that life is filled with ups and downs, impossible to live with one without the other. I've mentioned before how good and bad exist on a scale and eliminating the extremities of the scale only changes the frame of reference it does not eliminate either side.

From an objective standpoint the bad does outweigh the good, but that doesn't mean you can't still find the good amongst the bad. When you mine for gold or diamonds or any other type of ore, what you will find will be a small yield in comparison to the volume of waste material you will shift in your search. Whether this be literal mining or the kind you do in games like Minecraft the analogy remains the same, the value in the good outweighs the expense of the bad, even though the good only represents a fraction of what you unearth.

When we think about the modern world and all that is contained within it, we have an abundance of conduits that can deliver to us an awareness of the world. Through social media, through TV, radio, film, the news, and even through artistic expression in music and so much more, we are fed information and stimuli that constantly shapes our perception of the world. Objectively, the bulk of this stimuli is negative, you can try and criticise modern society as being at fault for this perceived imbalance but arguably it is human nature that drives this imbalance. We are genetically and evolutionarily programmed to focus on problems in order to survive. It is what poses a threat to us that we need to be aware of most, and that which poses no threat that which we can take the most for granted.

If you have anxiety, at some point you've probably listened to audio of rainfall, real or simulated, that creates an auditory environment that mimics being caught in a storm. In emotional terms you would imagine this would amplify your anxiety, with a storm seemingly posing a threat, and yet the opposite is true, most people find it comforting, you might ask yourself why? If you think in terms of evolution the answer is simple - animals do not hunt in the rain. You are programmed by evolution to feel comfort in a storm because you know there is no threat of attack. The only thing you need to worry about is staying dry, warm, and out of the path of any lightning strikes, all of which you know to be true when you sit in your room with headphones on, cuddled up trying to unwind.

We are a species that has been designed through evolution to focus on problems that need to be solved, and ignore everything that we deem to already have a solution. Fighting anxiety, depression, and that weariness with the world that sets in as we grow older and more complacent with how fucked up we think the world is, ultimately comes down to the need to seek out experiences that counter the negativity we are surrounded by every day. It can be a struggle, because it takes effort, a constant stream of relentless negativity will find its way to us one way or another without us having to do a thing. Finding positivity is the pursuit of happiness, it's not a mythical or mystical or even magical state that we can journey towards and eventually reach and say we're done, it is the act of moving, in any direction at all, that imparts more momentum to us than the forces that try to pin us down in one place.

I've been thinking a lot lately about the reality that I can't move very far in any direction, and slowly I've come to accept that I can't hold onto the idea that "I'll be happy when . . ." insert whatever my latest thing is; slowly I've come to accept that I just have to do small things that I enjoy in the moment and try to overcome the sense of guilt that comes from not moving, not producing, not meeting one metric or another, not acquiring enough material things to measure the success of a life.

Those are all very capitalistic ideas and beliefs that centre around the means of production being the purpose of being, and the failure to contribute to it being seen as a leaching. In truth as we move forward as a society, as AI advances, as efficiency becomes the goal of corporations more and more people are waking up to the reality that they are expendable, their contributions are not valued, no matter how many productive years they have given a company they are not seen as anything more than a dead weight when they can no longer perpetuate the belief that continuous growth is achievable.

Hyperbole and hysteria driven by AI put to one side, the trend toward automation has been decades in the making. Higher levels of unemployment are the reality today versus decades past. This trend will continue and population statistics don't show any sign that this will cool down any time soon. A smaller workforce is the coming reality, the magnitude of that reduction in size is likely overstated but an overall reduction is coming. As more people come to terms with that reality, the world is being reshaped by those already asking the question, what do you do with your life if you can't work? This was traditionally a question posed only to people with disabilities and health conditions whose very existence in itself was arguably a full time job, extending this question to able bodied people forces them to face the reality of life beyond work.