Global Angst

Before I launched the fashion juggernaut I was a bit pre-occupied with a feeling of mental sloth and overall ennui. Now that I've come down off my fashion crack high it’s occurred to me that much of what is manifesting itself in the blogosphere as ‘taking a break or walking away from blogging for awhile’ is a microcosm of an infinitely larger issue. Maybe it’s not me making me feel bad. Could it be a global angst brought on by the growing negativity we’re confronted with every day? I’ve adapted to my loss of a job and the fact that it’s not just me but the entire state of Oregon. But then I have to accept that it is not just me, my city, or my state, it is the entire United States with bipartisan bickering over our debt ceiling, downgrading our bond ratings, and no jobs growth in the most recent month. Suddenly, the terrain feels much more precarious. But still, I persevere and believe that it will be all right because inevitably it always has been. I have not lived through a depression or a world war. The only memories I have of economic anomaly is my mother piling us into the station wagon when it was our ‘day’ to but gasoline in the late 70s and the mini-jobs bust when I graduated from college in 1983—meaning there were no companies recruiting on campus and I went to work in a department store for 2.75 an hour.

But it doesn’t stop with the U.S. Greece teeters on the brink of default, young people riot in London for 5 days, Ireland, Italy, and Spain face economic ruin, and Germany is faced with bailing out the entire European Union. Libya and Syria are in the midst of violent political upheaval. Climate change continues unabated and several beautiful species are on the brink of extinction (no more Bengal tigers? How can that be?).

It could be said that the world has always been chaotic but as I wasn’t around for the Dark Ages it’s irrelevant. In my adult lifetime I don’t remember this level of upheaval. It leaves me wondering: how do we find the good in our own lives when the levels of anger, fear, and frustration are at an all-time global high? Fear is a contagion and it seems to be spreading. The individual psyche is impacted as we absorb everything around us whether consciously or unconsciously. Is it any wonder that the urge to check out/back away/ignore/take a break in our own lives is increasing? The other extreme is uncontrolled anger and violence which we’ve seen recently in the riots in London, Syria, Spain, and Libya. People feel they’re being pushed beyond a point they can bear and it’s largely due to economic issues.

I know my own ways around this and hesitate to write such a negative post but it feels more and more pervasive. Yes, I can enjoy the simplicity of my life, a stray ray of sunshine warming my back in between burst of rain but at the edge lingers unease. I must try to find the stillness, I must work to release the knot of fear over my own situation. Feeling good seems to take more and more energy as the sheer weight of the uncertainty of the future grinds us down. 

I know I have readers in other countries- do things feel as bad where you are? If you are somewhere that is in the midst of difficult times or you are even experiencing it in your own life how do you feel?