Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

Since we are repeating ourselves, let me just say fuck that.

The lights are all blinking red.

Oppose, oppose, oppose. do not congratulate. this is not business as usual.

We are aware of all internet traditions.

The desire to stay informed is directly at odds with the need to not be constantly enraged.

‘Museums aren’t America’s attic for its racist shit.’

People are complicated. Love is not.

The arc of the moral universe doesn’t bend itself. it’s up to us.

There are some who say that there are too many strawmen arguments on this blog.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Nothing worth doing is easy.

There are consequences to being an arrogant, sullen prick.

Michigan is a great lesson for Dems everywhere: when you have power…use it!

Innocent people don’t delay justice.

Accused of treason; bitches about the ratings. I am in awe.

Prediction: the gop will rethink its strategy of boycotting future committees.

Hey hey, RFK, how many kids did you kill today?

Let the trolls come, and then ignore them. that’s the worst thing you can do to a troll.

We won’t go back.

The republican speaker is a slippery little devil.

Let’s show the world that autocracy can be defeated.

DeSantis transforming Florida into 1930s Germany with gators and theme parks.

Republicans: “Abortion is murder but you can take a bus to get one.” Easy peasy.

Give the craziest people you know everything they want and hope they don’t ask for more? Great plan.

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Open Thread: Against Doomerism

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On Doomerism - STOCKPILE

When I was very young, my parents called me Eeyore (supposedly because that’s how my baby brother pronounced ‘Anne Laurie’ without the use of consonants). That much-maligned mythical donkey was one of my earliest role models, a true Cynic whose example I strive to emulate. Eeyore did not wallow in doomerism; he recognized the shortcomings of those around him, and took a certain satisfaction in noting them even while striving for mutual happiness. (Consider the famous birthday party story: Since Eeyore knew his friends would not remember his birthday unprompted, he made sure to remind them; when the best those friends could come up with for presents were ‘a jar that used to have honey in it’ and ‘a red rubber rag that was once a balloon’, he found a way to enjoy those humble gifts.)

Political doomerism does nobody any good. Yes, there are too many dumb / cruel / ill-informed voters, and a plethora of political grifters and crackpots all too eager to take advantage of them. Our job is to fight for every honest vote — to cure ignorance & stupidity where we can, and to get our own voters to the polls.

Open Thread: Against Doomerism



H/t to commentor Quadrillipede for linking to this useful post from Unitarian Universalist Doug Muder — “Hope, Denial, and Healthy Relationship with the News”:

… Today… I’m talking about an experience that I know is personal, but I’m only guessing about its universality. I think maybe something similar happens to a lot of you also, but we tend not to talk about things like this, so I don’t really know.

The experience is an intense spiraling downward that gets triggered not by anything in my personal life, but from my interaction with the news. I hear about something in the outside world, the public world that we all share, and then the walls come tumbling down…

One minute, you’re sailing along calmly, thinking, “Yeah, there are problems, but we’ll be OK.” And then you hear or see something. Maybe it’s a big thing, like the Dobbs decision or the October 7 attacks. But it doesn’t have to be. Maybe you hear about a heat wave in Asia. Or see police fighting with protesters. Or maybe somebody you know, somebody you thought knew better, surprises you by repeating some hateful political talking point about trans people or immigrants.

And in an instant the bottom falls out. That guarded confidence you felt a minute ago is gone, and suddenly all you can think is: “We’re doomed. We’re on a track to some unthinkable dystopia, and nothing I do makes any difference. People don’t understand, and I can’t explain it to them, because I can’t even imagine what they were thinking to begin with.”

I experience this as depression and despair, but I know other people for whom it manifests as anger: How can so many people be so stupid or self-centered or short-sighted? …

At this point, you need more than just a distracting hobby or a comfort animal. You need a strategy.

The beginning of strategy is noticing patterns. One pattern I’ve noticed in my life is a weekly cycle. I post my political blog on Monday mornings. And even though I’ve been assembling it all week, Monday morning usually requires about six hours of intense concentration. In particular, it’s emotional concentration, because I test each sentence for all the ways it could be misunderstood, and all the unintentional insults I might be dealing out to readers who come to this topic with life experiences different from mine. By Monday afternoon my empathy is exhausted, including my empathy for myself. So Monday evenings are difficult for me, and I’m highly vulnerable to these kinds of collapses.

I’ve tried a number of remedies, but the one that works best is simple acceptance: This is what Monday evening feels like. Notice it, accept it, don’t make it worse, but also don’t take it too seriously. I get through Monday, try not to expect much out of myself on Tuesday, and by Wednesday morning I’m almost always fine…

… Hope is neither optimism nor pessimism. Optimism and pessimism are beliefs about the future, but hope is an attitude towards the present. Hope says that striving is worthwhile. It doesn’t promise you an outcome. It just says that trying is better than not trying.

So in conclusion, that’s the mental hygiene I’ve been trying to live by these last few months, and that I recommend: Cultivate your capacity for hope, and regularly exercise your ability to live and function in the presence of uncertainty…

We don’t get to choose the future, but we do get to choose our own actions.

Choose well.

I can attest the usefulness of this strategy on a small scale: I started doing nightly posts about the then-new ‘Wuhan virus’ because noting all those bits of news and then setting them aside kept me from spiralling seventeen times a day. I kept doing them because other jackals found them helpful, and shared their own news, and their own coping strategies (as well as their own fears).

We (seem to have) made it through the pandemic, which was not a given any time in 2020. We will make it through the current pending disasters, probably… and if we don’t, despairing about circumstances now will not help.

Open Thread: Against Doomerism 1

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123Comments

  2. 2.

    Don

    “Notice it, accept it”

    This is a Buddhist thing, a meditation practice that works. I started fifteen years ago, and it saved my life. The only way to get through it all is acceptance. Whatever is, note it, and let it go. That’s the secret. Let it go. No matter what happens to me, or around me, outside of my control–accept it and let it go. No highs, no lows.

    It works.

  3. 3.

    Baud

    Two conjectures.

    1.  Our oligarches and elites promote doomerism to discourage people from fighting them.
    2. The psychological roots of doomerism are the same as those of MAGA: white people feeling like their losing their country.

    IMHO, as a cynic myself, doomerism isn’t mere cynicism.

  4. 4.

    Jeffg166

    I’ve been labeled Eeyore most of my life. If looking at reality makes me Eeyore I am OK with that.

    It is easy to slide into doomerism. It seems onto be the GQP’s plan to make everyone feel hopeless about stopping them. Stop them we must.

  5. 5.

    Tony Jay

    There’s a trap in all of this ‘fine line’ analysis of divides between This Thing and That Thing. Grading everything on a Good or Bad scale depending on how the relative mixtures of This and That change the colour and consistency of the product.

    Life isn’t that simple. There is no This or That. There are no clinically balanced scales upon which scientific grading can be carried out and the relative worthiness of action or inaction calculated. Everything is chaos and brand new in the micro, even though the catalyst and the end result look familiar in the macro. There’s never just two things on the table, there are a million different things starting and coming and entering and leaving at different times and at different angles, and there is no table.

    My point (such as it is) being, the need to assign simple labels to everything and slap a pre-approved name on them with Causes/Results/Solutions all listed in advance is almost always next to useless. It’s easy, which makes it attractive to people that communicate in 240 word bursts and political campaigns that require simple binary options to herd opinion their way, but it’s of zero use to real people looking for real solutions to real problems.

    So there’s doomerism, yes, as a deliberate technique and/or an ill-considered response, but there’s also acknowledging that bad things WILL happen sometimes, occasionally often, because in any democratic system there will always be powerful forces working for their own profit willing to inflict harm on others, often in conflict with each other. There’s no viable way of organising a free society that can fully avoid this (that I can see) but that doesn’t mean anyone has to like it or accept it or stop fighting against it.

    That’s life. And that’s the way it is. Plenty of time for melancholy when we’re dead.

  6. 6.

    Aussie Sheila

    @Baud:

    Mostly yes. Except I think now that  ‘doomerism’ is often a way of excusing being too lazy or disconnected to get up off the couch and get out and do some work. Especially when it comes to political work, a lot people think it’s ‘uncool’ to do the work to bring about the results you otherwise say you want.

    I take no notice speaking for myself. Either you do the work or you’re simply useless.

  8. 8.

    mardam

    Sometimes I think about this in the same terms that I thought about my work back in the early aughts. Cancer had been (and still is to a great extent) a scourge on the Earth and its a problem that seemed insurmountable. Sure, there were treatments. But they had their own problems. I mean, yeah, we’re going to treat your disease, but we’re going to make it so uncomfortable for you that you’ll think the disease just might be better, at times.

    Then, 10 years or so later, because of dedication, massive brain power, and new technologies newer and better treatments…even cures…started showing up. Where 20 years ago maybe 10 or 20% of patients would live five more years, now that number is 80 or 90%. And newer, and even better treatments are coming fast and furious.

    20 years ago you might have thought it was all a dream. It wasn’t worth it. There was no way.

    Now, there is nothing but hope as the lines get pushed further and further in patients’ favor.

    Don’t despair. There is already stuff out there that will be part of the solution. Do your part. Don’t make things worse for yourself and everyone else. Hope.

  9. 9.

    Princess

    @Baud: I agree with you about both of those things.

    The first thing I thought as I was reading this post was, “Hmm, Black Americans, who have more reasons than most to succumb to doomerism, seem to be as an community immune to it.” Your #2 would explain why – it’s partly a response to a loss of white privilege.

  11. 11.

    moonbat

    Thank you, AL.
    It has been my general sense in recent weeks that the news media in has been pushing a doomerist view of current events, mainly because their preferred candidate is in some deep doo-doo right now. So it has been a veritable fire hose of negativity that encourages paralysis and despair on the part of people who oppose him. Some people are more sensitive to that than others. When it gets to be too much for me I unplug for as long as it takes me to recover a realistic view of the news vs. the noise surrounding it. Not always easy as the two are too often delivered as the same thing in this country.

  13. 13.

    hueyplong

    I’m not sure Trump’s handlers can hide, and the MSM ignore, Trump’s decline over the next nearly half year, which is just as likely to accelerate as it is to stabilize.  “More likely” is a decent bet.

    We’ve seen way too much fantasizing about replacing the Dem candidate, especially in light of the fact that the party that may actually be confronting such an issue for real is the other one.  Wait until Trump is bragging that he sometimes goes potty all by himself.

  14. 14.

    Chris Johnson

    @Baud: Hard agree, but I’ll amend that for ya:

    AN oligarchy and elite is pushing doomerism through every possible avenue available to them, to try to get people to roll over in surrender and not even fight them.

    I would note that Ukraine, which has the dubious pleasure of knowing what happens to you when you do roll over and surrender, Ukraine doesn’t give in to the doomerism more or less because they’ve got a lot of experience in seeing it imposed from outside themselves by a close neighbor whose behavior is widely known.

    Putin’s circle are not the only oligarchy and elite in the world and there will still be others after they’re gone, including our own. But most of the action that’s going on vis-a-vis doomerism is out of Russia, because it’s a weapon of war and a preferred weapon since 2016.

  15. 15.

    SiubhanDuinne

    This is an excellent thread, both AL’s original post and links, and some truly insightful Jackal comments. Many thanks to everyone contributing to this thoughtful and generous conversation.

  16. 16.

    OzarkHillbilly

    Meta revokes job offer to sextortion expert after he publicly criticizes Instagram

    Paul Raffile had been offered a job as a human exploitation investigator focusing on issues such as sextortion and human trafficking. He had participated in a 24 April webinar on safeguarding against financial sextortion schemes, during which he criticized Instagram for allowing children to fall prey to scammers and offered possible solutions.

    “The only reason I can think of for the offer being rescinded is me trying to shine a light on this big issue of these crimes happening on Instagram, and Instagram doing little to prevent it so far,” said Raffile.
    ……………………….
    Meta said in a statement: “It’s not accurate to imply the offer was rescinded because of the NCRI report, the webinar or the candidate’s expertise in this space.” The company did not provide a reason for rescinding Raffile’s offer..

    What is wrong with this guy? Didn’t he know he was hired to be a show horse and not actually do anything? Then he went and embarrassed them. Can’t have that.

  19. 19.

    stinger

    Thank you, Anne Laurie!

    @sab: My primary memory of Eeyore is after his birthday party, when he happily transfers the damp pink rag into the empty pot, and back out again. The balloon, when it was a balloon, wouldn’t have fit, and the honey pot, when it had honey, wouldn’t have held the rag. He found value in What Is.

    And what would Eeyore be doing, if not making that transfer? What do donkeys do? They carry our burdens. Including our emotional negativity. “Let go and let Eeyore” — isn’t that a saying?

  20. 20.

    different-church-lady

    If I had more time I’d offer more response, but for now I’ll just say “Excellent” and thank you.

  21. 21.

    zhena gogolia

    I was called Eeyore too, and he was my favorite character. (Tigger was my next favorite, go figure.)

  23. 23.

    bbleh

    @Don: the same thought struck me when I saw “accept” in the OP.  And perhaps to belabor a point, what you “let go” is not the thing you are noticing but your own (ego-based) desires concerning it — what/how you want it to be or not be.  The calls, in other words, are coming from inside the house.  That’s challenging, but it’s also enormously liberating because that’s something you really can do something about.

    One other note.  As a Zen master once responded to a question, “it’s not passive; it’s positive.”  “Accepting” something does not mean giving up all judgment or agency with respect to it; rather, it means approaching it with full clarity about it (and oneself), and proceeding with that understanding rather than a head full of desires that may well be partly or entirely unrealistic.

    @Baud: concur entirely with #1.  And thus also what @Aussie Sheila: said.

  25. 25.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @mardam:

    What a great point you’ve made. Thank you.

    Then, 10 years or so later, because of dedication, massive brain power, and new technologies newer and better treatments…even cures…started showing up.

    Don’t forget MONEY. We have progressed because nations (historically led by the US since WWII) have poured resources into basic, translational, and clinical research. Unfortunately the US underfunded NIH from 2003 through 2015, practically a flat budget allocation, and ongoing increases are not keeping up with inflation. Heck, the basic funding instrument, an R01 grant, is still baselined at $250k/year, which is what it was during the Clinton years.

  27. 27.

    Nukular Biskits

    Good mornin’, y’all.

    Interesting topic.  I have to admit, particularly having to deal with the consequences of regressive MS politics, to falling into the doomer pit myself on occasion.

  29. 29.

    Another Scott

    Great post.

    Meanwhile, Kia is coming for the Big 3’s cash cows. They better get on the stick.

    A little over a year ago, Kia announced plans to launch two electric trucks by 2027. One of them has seemingly been caught testing in California while wearing bulky camouflage. It’s not the recently announced Tasman since that one looks different and will have a combustion engine, at least initially. We’re certainly dealing with a test mule since it uses parts from other models.

    […]

    When the announcement was made in March 2022 about two electric trucks, Kia said one would be a “dedicated” model and the other a “strategic” vehicle for emerging markets. The Tasman is likely the latter since an EV derivative is expected to follow later this decade. What puzzles us is that Kia is testing the Tasman in the US even though it hasn’t been confirmed for North America, at least not yet.

    Whatever the case may be, it sure looks like Kia is planning to launch at least one truck in North America in the years to come. Ideally, it’ll be built here. Otherwise, it’s going to be subjected to the Chicken Tax, a 25-percent tariff on imported light trucks dating back to 1964.

    […]

    (Fair) Competition is good.

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  37. 37.

    Starfish

    @Nukular Biskits: Oh, in Mississippi, that is so hard because there is a lot of single-party corruption going on.

    My mom is trying to push her estrangement from politics on her Trumper friends.

    “Biden doesn’t care about us, and Trump doesn’t care about us either.”

  38. 38.

    Starfish

    How do we not confuse our anti-doomerism with toxic positivity though?

    I like what @Jeffg166 was touching upon up thread.

    There is value to what Eeyore always did. He prepared for the worst so he would not be surprised by it.

  39. 39.

    Baud

    @Starfish:

    Are we really suffering from people who are being lazy because they are confident everything will work out on their own?

    I can see people thinking everything will work out to justify being lazy, but not positivity leading to laziness.

    I’ll grant that positivity might lead people to take the wrong action. But since that usually can only be determined in hindsight, there’s little we can do about it.

    And at bottom, IMHO, positivity spreading to others is less damaging that doomerism spreading to others.

    YMMV.

  41. 41.

    Renie

    Thanks for posting this. I never heard of Doug Muder and after looking at his blog, he has a new fan.

  42. 42.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @Baud:

    Our oligarches and elites promote doomerism to discourage people from fighting them.

    In other words, the effort is to get us to “obey [or surrender] in advance,” which we should never do, as Timothy Snyder points out in his most excellent “On Tyranny.”

    I find it helpful to limit negative news intake, avoid rage farming (even on this here esteemed blog), and take positive steps however small to support our wobbly democracy, such as writing postcards to voters, being an elections official, and donating to groups that do good work in this arena.

  43. 43.

    bbleh

    @Baud: Are we really suffering from people who are being lazy because they are confident everything will work out on their own?

    Arguably we had a form of that in 2016.  Everybody knew TIFG was just brand-building and couldn’t actually win the election.

    I don’t think we’re seeing any of that now though …

  44. 44.

    Ken

    In the spirit of anti-doomerism, I’ll share the happy news that Arizona authorities have served Rudy Giuliani with the indictment in the fake-electors case. The cherry on top is that he was served at his 80th birthday party in Florida.

  45. 45.

    stinger

    @Baud:

    positivity spreading to others is less damaging that doomerism spreading to others.

    And it’s more fun, too!

  46. 46.

    Scout211

    @Starfish: How do we not confuse our anti-doomerism with toxic positivity though?

    Everyone is different.  Some people become depressed by events and need hope to pull themselves out of the feelings of depression and helplessness.  Others need to see the negativity to generate anger that can trigger activism.

    Opposite sides of the coin, helplessness vs. activism and all versions in between.  We are not all alike, for sure. I guess we just need to know what we personally need while having some awareness that our comments can affect others.

  47. 47.

    stinger

    @Ken:

    authorities have served Rudy Giuliani with the indictment… at his 80th birthday party

    <chef’s kiss>

  48. 48.

    Ken

    @TBone: her treatise on mansplaining is superb

    Agreed, and I have since often apologized when I catch myself mansplaining — actually, often enough that I’ve begun to worry that I’m using it as a shield so I can keep mansplaining.

  49. 49.

    Baud

    @bbleh:

    Ok, that makes some sense.  I attributed that to the dumb idea of protest voting, but I agree that a lot of people thought they could get away with it.

  50. 50.

    MagdaInBlack

    @TBone: Thank you. I knew exactly what you posted before I clicked, I’ve read it so many times. I read it again, just because its so perfect. One of my favorites ❤️

  51. 51.

    Enhanced Voting Techniques

    Doomerism isn’t realism; Realism is saying “My car will break (eventually)” and subscribing to a tow service, doomerism is saying “My car will break” and abandoning the car.

    Also, the entire press are doomers.  You feel like your becoming a doomer, cut back on your news consumption.

  54. 54.

    Chief Oshkosh

    @comrade scotts agenda of rage: Interesting read; thanks.

    As to the political animus for flattened NIH funding, possibly the costs of two massive, pointless wars cut into our national budget at the time. Couple those costs with supply-side economics bullshit that limits options for how to deal with such resource demands, toss in the fact that one of two political parties was becoming more and more anti-science and more and more FYIGM, add in The Great Recession largely caused by the idiotic policies espoused by the warmongering, supply-siding asshole party, and voila – flat budgets for research.

    So, pretty much as with most problems our nation faces, the political animus is that Republicans are shitheels.

  57. 57.

    Other MJS

    Thank you, AL. This is the way my brain is wired, and it’s enormously helpful to hear smart people pushing back.

  59. 59.

    TBone

    @Ken: your awareness is key. A key that many can’t find.  People with awareness usually don’t suffer from the urge to mansplain for too long 😊

  60. 60.

    TBone

    @MagdaInBlack: love back atcha, that essay saved me a lot of trouble in many ways, especially in the law offices.  I only wish it had been written when I was younger!

  61. 61.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Another great way to try to avoid Doomerism is to use things like the pie filter and other block functions to clean up the spaces you do spend time in.  It makes such a difference!

  62. 62.

    TBone

    Justice Alito using plausible deniability just like his orange master is gonna get his ass kicked.  It went over like a fart in a court room.  It was akin to mansplaining, especially when he went on Fux Snews to foist his pathetic excuse but did not deny WHY the flag was flown upside down.

    He is REALLY DUMB.

  67. 67.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @Starfish: You can over prepare for the worst, to the point that it really harms your mental health and well being too.    I think the sweet spot is preparing for the worst but avoiding feeling like the worst is guaranteed to happen and having that get you down. It’s a tricky balance.

  69. 69.

    Another Scott

    @TBone: I saw that years ago.  It really is excellent.  Thanks for the (re)pointer.

    [ filing it away for future reference ]

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  70. 70.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Ahmed Fouad Alkhatib on Twitter:

    The activation of the temporary humanitarian pier in Gaza by the United States and the incredible folks at @CENTCOM is a welcome and helpful development that will undoubtedly make a difference. This is especially so given that the Rafah border crossing, once the primary artery for aid coming into the battered coastal enclave, has been out of commission for almost two weeks. However, as US and UN officials have repeatedly stated, the floating pier is not an alternative to other land crossings being utilized for aid delivery, especially the Kerem Shalom, Erez Crossing, and other options like the Rafah crossing and airdrops. The floating pier is expected to scale up the pace and volume of aid being brought into Gaza. For now, the IDF will provide onshore security, and the United Nations will be in charge of distributing the aid to different sectors in Gaza. The pier is testament to the Biden administration’s seriousness in bypassing the gridlock in Gaza, caused by Hamas’s intransigence and Israel’s defiance of US and international demands and calls/wishes. Remember that there’s fierce combat taking place in Gaza’s northern and southern cities, making effective aid delivery and distribution a hazardous and challenging task; this pier is a vital tool that will help save lives. Thank you

  74. 74.

    RevRick

    @Jeffg166:

    @Aussie Sheila:

    When I first read Winnie the Pooh as a child, I almost instinctively identified with Eeyore. He outwardly expressed my inner, hidden sadness. Depression became my lifelong struggle, for which I entered therapy several times.
    The thing I’ve learned about my depression is that it’s rooted in a fear that I am basically unlovable, which then manifests itself in hopelessness and helplessness. Paradoxically, it has bred in my very little tolerance for whining and complaining. But then we often dislike in others what we most hate about ourselves.

    Doomerism is whining writ large. It is hopelessness and helplessness writ large. But it also speaks of isolation and disconnection from larger communities. It’s when fear intersects with the individualist ideology that infects our society.

    There are things one can do to counteract that. For me, it’s washing dishes and cleaning the bathroom. But it also means that whenever I go out walking my 6000 steps, I pick up litter and recyclable cans. It also means I wrote a letter to the editor, which appeared in our local paper, calling the CO2 Coalition ( backed by fossil fuel companies) liars. It also means I will preach a sermon tomorrow on the need for churches to act on climate change. It also means I have pushed the church to which my wife and I belong to establish a Green Team to create an action plan for our church to address climate change.
    As Bill McKibben stated at the United Church of Christ Earth Day Summit, it’s a good thing that churches have lots of gray-haired folks, because we vote and we have money and we have clout. When we work together, we can do something.

  75. 75.

    kalakal

    @UncleEbeneezer:

    You can over prepare for the worst, to the point that it really harms your mental health and well being too

    I can relate to this. I used to over prepare my holidays to the extent they were miserable. I would have a mental checklist of everything that could go wrong eg how many ways I could fail to get to the airport, how many things could go wrong at the airport, how many things could go wrong on the flight* etc. that instead of actually enjoying myself or experiencing anything new I was simply racking up a list of potential crises avoided.

    Accepting that things can go wrong and being prepared to deal with the consequences is healthy and realistic, acting as though everything will go wrong is not

    *oddly the plane crashing was not on my list

  77. 77.

    Starfish

    @Baud: Toxic positivity is not the assumption that everything will work out.

    It is treating everything that is not positivity as negativity, like “I am concerned this Boeing airplane might fail.”

    “Why are you being so negative?”

    In some cases, the potential outcome could be so bad that you really do have to consider even unlikely bad outcomes.

  79. 79.

    Starfish

    @Scout211: For sure.

    There was a lot of exhaustion and isolation during the high points of the pandemic.

    The climate change stuff is a place where a lot of focus on the potential bad outcomes can lead to paralysis. I am grateful for the positive posts that Tamara puts up on this issue.

  80. 80.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @kalakal: ​  My view on travel is that it will either go well and be great or it won’t and it will be an adventure. Adventures can be tough to live through, but are memorable and lead to great stories.​
     

    ETA: I think everyone here has heard more than enough from be about doomerism.

  81. 81.

    Starfish

    @UncleEbeneezer: I want to draw a half circle (like a speedometer) where a third of it is Eeyore, a third is Piglet, and a third is Pooh and ask everyone to draw a needle to where they are on it.

  82. 82.

    UncleEbeneezer

    @kalakal: I know this well.  My wife is very much the same way.  We leave for vacation on Monday so right now is the planning/panicking/catastrophizing period that always happens just before we leave.  It drives us both crazy.  She’s talked to her therapist about it many times, but it’s a hard habit to break.  I have a little bit of it in me too, but not as bad.

  85. 85.

    kalakal

    @Omnes Omnibus:

    My view on travel is that it will either go well and be great or it won’t and it will be an adventure

    That’s how I look on it these days. Looking back it was fear. Of change, of the unknown, of being out of my comfort zone. Don’t know why I went through that phase, I think like most damaging behaviours it was a sensible, healthy attitude “don’t forget your passport” exaggerated to an extreme

  88. 88.

    O. Felix Culpa

    It might also be helpful to ask “Cui bono?” when doomerism is peddled. Hint: we, the general populace, are not the intended beneficiaries.

  89. 89.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @kalakal: When my friends and I went on ski trips when I was in Germany in the army, we would check for passports, wallets, skis, and boots.  Anything else we could buy with little difficulty.

  91. 91.

    UncleEbeneezer

    After about 12-16 hours of zoom and online assignment trainings I now have to film a 20-minute video and take a final exam for a tennis certification I’m trying to get.  I think I will do just fine and I have a good plan and I’ve done well in the zoom sessions etc., but of course I’m still second-guessing everything and worrying about trying to get everything perfect.  I always hated the anxiety of Finals, in college.  I’ll be so glad when I’m done and we go on vacation on Monday.  We are gonna be camping in the Sierras (Lone Pine) and it will be nice to be more-or-less, offline for a week.

  92. 92.

    Soprano2

    @OzarkHillbilly: One good thing is that Republican infighting means they didn’t pass the bill to put gutting the initiative petition process on the ballot. Missouri, where the R’s now run almost everything, shows how this makes them try to be more and more “pure”, and thus not very much gets done, which is a good thing.

  93. 93.

    Another Scott

    @TBone: Relatedly, …

    Deniz Opal
    @[email protected]

    Mrs Wainwright, secondary school Geography teacher used to always say “The answer is in the question”.

    40 years later I see things like this, and can hear Mrs Wainwright’s voice clear as day.

    [ image ]

    ALT Text:

    Why is male country music like “hot girls in teeny tiny shorts I will make you my wife, bear my children, front porch, family values, casseroles” and female country music is like “oops I killed my husband”

    May 18, 2024, 07:20 AM
    ·

    ‘Tiz a mystery!

    Cheers,
    Scott.

  96. 96.

    Geminid

    Pessimists can be exhausting, and they exist across the globe, I saw a post last winter from Bora Bingol, a Turkish engineer I happen to follow on Twitter. Bingol is an ardent supporter of the small, scrappy opposition Homeland Party, and one day he got fed up with a party Eeyore:

       Enough with your negativity pumping. No one is your emotional punching bag….You say what you think, thank you, but other people are not your EMOTIONAL SAND BAG. Other people don’t have to suffer your pain every minute.

    BECAUSE WE ARE IN A PARTY NOT A RELATIONSHIP. Politics is done in political parties, so lets act like we are in a political party, please. I strongly request. Thanks.

  97. 97.

    Barry

    @hueyplong: “We’ve seen way too much fantasizing about replacing the Dem candidate, especially in light of the fact that the party that may actually be confronting such an issue for real is the other one. Wait until Trump is bragging that he sometimes goes potty all by himself.”

     

    IMHO, that’s why the ‘liberal’ MSM was focusing on drumming up that story. By any reasonable standard, Trump is by far the worse candidate. They had to ‘flood the zone with shit’ to cover for that.

  101. 101.

    TBone

    @Starfish: I’m glad!  I always thought I’d travel and party when I retired.  Turns out, I’m happy sitting with myself in a stable home (I had many unstable situations in the past, and I traveled and partied my ass off.  Don’t like the job? Get one in another area!) watching the world and taking time in a whole new direction – slow and steady, my style now.  There is so much to see and I don’t need to go far away to travel.  On that note 🎶

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Qf-MaLXgl3A

  106. 106.

    artem1s

    Doomerism is a trait I started to see back in the late 90’s with my (then) normie right leaning friends and relatives. They started to spout GOP talking points that were based on a false narrative about some thing being a threat to the country or sure to cause a financial collapse, etc. One ‘discussion’ with my BIL really sticks out in my head because it became a real turning point for how I approached discussing politics with my family. He started with this broad statement, “we all agree/know that things are getting worse and worse in the country…”. This stuck out in my mind because it was the first time I challenged his framing. I stated that I did not agree that everything was getting worse and worse. And that I didn’t have to accept that premise as true in order to discuss the topic he was introducing. At that point he became unhinged – his next statement was even more bizarre. He very angrily said something like “I didn’t know you were like that”. I couldn’t figure out what ‘like that’ was supposed to imply. He seemed to be disappointed that I was on the ‘NOT going to hell in a handbasket’ bandwagon? Maybe he was admonishing me for not automatically agreeing with him? Maybe he was spouting some gas lighting point that he’d heard from some other rightwing nutjob. But honestly, I think he was reacting to me openly advocating a position that he associated with Liberal thinking – the way we have all been reacting when we hear a friend or family member express their MAGAt loyalties.He and most of this country is being completely indoctrinated into believing that Bill Clintons’ administration was a disaster – morally, economically and militarily. The GOP had to instill this at a molecular level in order to get W elected and put the Cheney war machine into action. Then they had to do it all over again to discredit the Obama administration’s accomplishment. Karl Rove’s use of the Southern Strategy, and co-opting ‘Christian Conservatism’ broke something in those who were susceptible to conspiracy thinking. The shift toward authoritarian, absolutist, “I/we are right and you are evil” became more pronounced after 9/11. The War on Terror became the War against Lie-iberals, the War against Feminazis, the War on Abortion Doctors, the War against same-sex bathrooms, the War on Border Caravans, the War to defend Xmas from the ungodly atheism mooslims…the doomer list of things that MUST concern TRUE AMERICANS goes on and on and on. The GOP has systematically used authoritarian and cult recruiting tactics to achieve their power grab. It’s no wonder the true believers can’t function in reality anymore.
    My BIL was a military lifer. He is set for life. Full military pension and guaranteed health insurance. He hasn’t had to work a day since he was 42 years old. And yet instead of relaxing and enjoying his life, he’s constantly fixated on whatever the GOP or rightwing christian nutbags narrative of the day is going to be. He’s (unironically) better at predicting the headlines than the FTNYT pitchbot. These wingers can reliably reproduce extreme GOP talking points given a few prompts on Facebook or XShitter or wherever they hang with their MAGAt friends. They’re walking, breathing Rightwing AI bots and trojan horses that infect everyone around them with their doomer thinking.​

  107. 107.

    TBone

    😆

    Rudy Giuliani’s 80th birthday bash in Palm Beach was stormed “like it was Normandy” as the former New York City mayor was served with notice of his Arizona indictment, sources told The Post.

    In front of nearly 75 guests, two officials with Arizona’s attorney general’s office arrived at the shindig around 11 p.m. to hand Giuliani the papers in the case alleging he and 17 others were involved in a plot to overturn the 2020 election, the sources said.

    Some partygoers started screaming and one woman even cried as Giuliani was served.

    “It’s unfortunate that they chose to barge up and startle guests during a celebration of this man’s 80th birthday,” Goodman told The Post.

    Rudy Giuliani’s bizarre 80th birthday Amazon gift registry includes Armani cologne, an electric razor and ceiling paint “They could’ve shown a little more respect for the man who comforted the nation following September 11th and who stands up for law enforcement and the men and women in blue.”

    😆

    LOL music

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=QvwDohEEQ1E

    Mom used to play these a LOT when I was little – local flavor!  She went to high school with Jim but was older.

    https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=hickVDiW8k0

    I could walk to this place from my house, but it was gone by that time. Used to live on War Trophy Lane in Lima.

    During this time, Croce secured his first long-term gig at a suburban bar and steakhouse in Lima, Pennsylvania called the Riddle Paddock. Croce’s set list covered several genres, including blues, country, rock and roll and folk.

  108. 108.

    O. Felix Culpa

    @artem1s: My sympathies to you. I had similar conversations with a former high school classmate (retired Marine) after 2016. It proved impossible to stay on point and fact-based, and grew–on his part–increasingly nasty. It was exhausting and pointless, and so I retired from that effort. Much easier to do with a far-flung acquaintance than with a relative, though.

    ETA: His dark, apocalyptic worldview shocked me. This was before TFG’s “American Carnage” speech.

  109. 109.

    Omnes Omnibus

    @TBone: If he hadn’t tried to duck being served, it wouldn’t have had to go down that way.  But he did and it did.

  111. 111.

    Starfish

    @TBone: Oh, I really liked that one, and the Duolingo has been helping with understanding Spanish even though I couldn’t put a sentence together for anything.

    I don’t like my job, but I feel stuck. I do want to travel a little though.

  113. 113.

    munira

    @Don: It does indeed work as long as you do the practice. It has certainly made me a more patient and contented human being.

  114. 114.

    UncleEbeneezer

    Three years ago today we lost probably my favorite singer of all-time, Chris Cornell, to suicide.  Frontman and primary songwriter for the Seattle grunge band Soundgarden, Cornell was a standout even in a crowded field which included stellar vocalists Layne Staley, Eddie Vedder and Kurt Cobain.  In addition to his incredible vocals, Cornell’s songs, imo, were always a bit more complex than those of Pearl Jam, Nirvana and Alice In Chains.  It’s one of the reasons why even though I started as a Pearl Jam fan more than any other Seattle band, thirty years later Soundgarden is the one I still listen to most often.  Unfortunately, Cornell struggled with depression for years.  So much so, that honestly, I couldn’t find a single song of his that I would really call positive or uplifting.  But that was also part of his appeal.  You could palpably feel the struggle and pain in his songs and his incredible voice.  He was a modern blues singer, doing it in the context of Alternative/Grunge music.

    Here’s an extraordinary song he wrote titled Say Hello To Heaven for Temple of the Dog.

    RIP Chris!

  115. 115.

    Beth H

    Damn fine post Eeyore! I don’t bookmark many blog posts, but this one is a keeper for those times when doomerism and pessimism encroach on my thoughts.

  119. 119.

    Yet Another Haldane

    Thank you, Anne Laurie!

    Annalee Newitz and Charlie Jane Anders covered related ground in an episode about Hopepunk of their podcast Our Opinions Are Correct.  The essence of hope is that the struggle matters, even with no guarantee of success.

    See:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hopepunk

    On the theme of “simple acceptance” from the Muder essay, there’s an aphorism from dialectical behavior therapy:  “Pain plus denial equals suffering.  Pain plus acceptance equals pain.”  That’s definitely not optimistic, but it’s also definitely useful.

    See:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_behavior_therapy

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