I have had the feeling that there has been a major disenchantment epidemic permeating across the world over the last 8 or 10 years. Any sense of wonder or optimism has basically fizzled out. It spread pretty rapidly, but surreptitiously at first. And then there was no denying it during COVID. Now, sitting in the middle of 2024, it is pretty amazing just how disenchanted people are about things in general, even when you consider their best case scenarios! If your instinct is to think about why the most optimistic scenario you can come up with isn't optimistic enough, and if that outlook is held by a big enough portion of the population, we're literally saying we're not even interested in inventing a future. We'd rather think about how we're going to deal with whatever that future is inevitably going to be, and get bummed out today.
I read the "other shoe dropping" in that sense. We're about to find out just how we cope with a future we aren't particularly enthused about. I feel like there will be visible signs or reactions first, but those will be distractions and a deviation from the broad, subliminal theme. That broader theme will be apathy and indifference, but of a very nihilistic or absurdist type. A wartime mindset, but without the hope of peacetime.
"If your instinct is to think about why the most optimistic scenario you can come up with isn't optimistic enough"
This is a really interesting way to put that mindset. I feel like the lone optimist in most groups of people my age (~40 +/- 10) despite almost all of them living lives I was told were impossible to attain growing up in the 80s/90s.
And maybe that's a big part of the problem. If we were constrained by our imaginations, and if reality has managed to beat those limits as handsomely as it has, it kinda follows that disenchantment would set in. That's one thing I notice very clearly every time I travel to India...the folks who have the least reason to be optimistic about anything seem to have an endless supply of optimism.
I look at your writing, and go, I wish I could write. So since you can write, I'm happy that you do. Reading your writing makes me wish that I could write someday - have interesting ideas and share them in a coherent way.
For some reason I find myself attracted to ancient - or at least very old - narratives. I am reading The Iliad for crissake! And that epic bio of Lincoln from a few years ago. I somehow can't get back to my hard 70s-90s scifi of the acute pandemic era. Maybe the current moment is unreal enough already.
I have had the feeling that there has been a major disenchantment epidemic permeating across the world over the last 8 or 10 years. Any sense of wonder or optimism has basically fizzled out. It spread pretty rapidly, but surreptitiously at first. And then there was no denying it during COVID. Now, sitting in the middle of 2024, it is pretty amazing just how disenchanted people are about things in general, even when you consider their best case scenarios! If your instinct is to think about why the most optimistic scenario you can come up with isn't optimistic enough, and if that outlook is held by a big enough portion of the population, we're literally saying we're not even interested in inventing a future. We'd rather think about how we're going to deal with whatever that future is inevitably going to be, and get bummed out today.
I read the "other shoe dropping" in that sense. We're about to find out just how we cope with a future we aren't particularly enthused about. I feel like there will be visible signs or reactions first, but those will be distractions and a deviation from the broad, subliminal theme. That broader theme will be apathy and indifference, but of a very nihilistic or absurdist type. A wartime mindset, but without the hope of peacetime.
It’s sort of funny how people were talking about reenchantment before but gave up
Lol at reenchantment. The anthropological equivalent of a dead cat bounce.
I liked the term/idea but it has strong connotations of retvrn trad stuff so I gave up trying to use it
"If your instinct is to think about why the most optimistic scenario you can come up with isn't optimistic enough"
This is a really interesting way to put that mindset. I feel like the lone optimist in most groups of people my age (~40 +/- 10) despite almost all of them living lives I was told were impossible to attain growing up in the 80s/90s.
And maybe that's a big part of the problem. If we were constrained by our imaginations, and if reality has managed to beat those limits as handsomely as it has, it kinda follows that disenchantment would set in. That's one thing I notice very clearly every time I travel to India...the folks who have the least reason to be optimistic about anything seem to have an endless supply of optimism.
I look at your writing, and go, I wish I could write. So since you can write, I'm happy that you do. Reading your writing makes me wish that I could write someday - have interesting ideas and share them in a coherent way.
For some reason I find myself attracted to ancient - or at least very old - narratives. I am reading The Iliad for crissake! And that epic bio of Lincoln from a few years ago. I somehow can't get back to my hard 70s-90s scifi of the acute pandemic era. Maybe the current moment is unreal enough already.
so what is the best way (or propose several) to take advantage of this and change the world?
"The fan of possible futures right now is as wide as it’s ever been in my lifetime."
"Others are shaping things but aren’t going to make your life either easy or exciting. Just annoying."
👏 👏 👏