[throwanem]

Honestly, sometimes I wonder if most people these days kinda aren't at least that age, you know? Or less inhibited about acting it than I believe I recall people being last decade. Even compared to just a few years back, people seem more often to struggle to carry a thought, and resort much more quickly to emotional belligerence.

Oh, not that I haven't been as knocked about in the interim, of course. I'm not really claiming I'm better, and these are frightening times; I hope I'm neither projecting nor judging too harshly. But even trying to discount for the possibility, there still seems something new left to explain.

[Hackbraten]

> Even compared to just a few years back, people seem more often to struggle to carry a thought, and resort much more quickly to emotional belligerence.

We're living in extremely uncertain times, with multiple global crises taking place at the same time, each of which could develop into a turning point for humankind.

At the same time, predatory algorithms do whatever it takes to make people addicted to media, while mental health care remains inaccessible for many.

I feel like throwing a tantrum almost every single day.

[throwanem]

I feel perhaps I've been unkind to many people in my thoughts, but I'm conflicted. I don't understand myself to be particularly fearless, but what times call more for courage than times like these? How do people afraid even to try to practice courage expect to find it, when there isn't time for practice any more?

[Hackbraten]

You have only so many spoons available per crisis. Even picking your battle can become a problem.

I've been out in the streets, protesting and raising awareness of climate change. I no longer do. It's a pointless waste of time. Today, the climate change deniers are in charge.

[throwanem]

I don't assume I'm going to be given the luxury of picking my battles, and - though I've been aware of "spoon theory" since I watched it getting invented at Shakesville back in the day - I've never held to it all that strongly, even as I acknowledge I've also never been quite the same since a nasty bout of wild-type covid in early 2020. Now as before, I do what needs doing as best I can, then count the cost. Some day that will surely prove too high, and my forward planning efforts will be put to the test. Till then I'm happy not to borrow trouble.

I've lived in this neighborhood a long time, and there are a couple of old folks' homes a block or so from here. Both have excellent views, on one frontage each, of an extremely historic cemetery, which I have always found a wonderfully piquant example of my adopted hometown's occasionally wire-brush sense of humor. But I bring it up to mention that the old folks don't seem to have much concern for spoons other than to eat with, and they are protesting the present situation regularly and at considerable volume, and every time I pass about my errands I make a point of raising a fist and hollering "hell yeah!" just like most of the people who drive past honk in support.

Will you tell them it's pointless?