On the Despair of the Days
The air feels thick from pollution and disappointment— housing markets and rents soaring beyond reason, with the promise of a long-term viable home a seeming impossible pipe dream. The paychecks melt in the bank account, claimed immediately by the bills: rent, groceries, gas, the occasional fleeting indulgence that feels like a crazy act of rebellion.
The seasons no longer settle; they rage with uncertainty and wreak havoc. Hurricanes tear apart the edges of the coastlines and bring tornadoes., while wildfires consume everywhere from California to NYC. Floodwaters carve new boundaries in towns where rain once brought joy, and the sun, an unrelenting specter, glares down more brutally every year. Life has become a dangerous game of survival, played in rising temperatures and storm winds.
There’s talk of leaders and new promises of law and order, but their shadows loom far darker and menacingly. Is this fascism creeping, inch by inch, while we scroll and doomscroll, our voices fading into hashtags and the attention economy? The old promises of progress curdle as global wars reignite across maps we once hoped were mended and our attention spans can barely register the brutality as we are confronted by an unrelenting media blitz, by echo chambers and targeted advertisers, and we knowingly feed into the madness. “Mass formation psychosis,” they call it.
