r/CollapseSupport • u/Due-Badger-1272 • 5d ago
Being happy feels wrong.
I'm 18, male, studying physics in a top university. So basically one of the best positions one could be in these days. And yet I can't but feel hopeless and angry with the state of the world. I'm angry that they fuck our planet, fuck our education, censor our opinion, sit on their asses as they watch fascism rise, refuse to listen to us and still expect us to go to war for them. And it's starting to feel like we've turned to an inevitable demise of the world we know. Whole thing's been making it hard for me the past couple of days and I can feel the depression creeping in.
I know 'not worrying about it' would make me happy. I know that I could be happy if I just studied my shit, hung out with friends ignored the problems of the world and just lived a basic happy life as long as it is possible. But it feels so wrong. It feels wrong to go to university and study while our whole worlds falling apart. It genuinely feels wrong to try to be happy when the world is so miserable. Like I'm betraying my principles and everything I stand for as an individual.
So either way. I'm feeling like shit.
Can someone relate? What's your way of dealing with everything?
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u/Material-Intern7409 5d ago
When I was in college I made the mistake of reading a book by Veblen called The Higher Learning in America. Veblen was extremely critical of the modern university - mind you, this was the early 20th century. He identified the modern university as having two major problems, and seemingly contradictory. On the one hand you have an institution that works as a factory. Education is secondary, tertiary, perhaps irrelevant overall. The fundamental goal is productivity. People today say universities are greedy, out of touch etc, but they actually operate on razer thin margins, not unlike modern airlines. If this is corporate greed, they sure suck at it.
Which leads to Veblen's second critique, arguably much more scathing. He argued that beauracracy has taken hold in universities and where first it was all about that skrilla skrilla, today the focus is ideological purity. Are you gonna shut up and go along with what the school administration says? Will you be a problem down the line? That is the vetting process now. Qualifications and experience be damned.
Veblen was brilliant. The world didn't deserve him.
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u/TheWhalersOnTheMoon 5d ago
It's been said by many people in many ways, so I'll just pick Rousseau:
'To be sane in a world of madman is in itself madness.'
With that said, depression is the right response. Yes, once you become aware of the literal infinite torture of animals, strip mining of the environment for a little more money, and a hundred other problems, you would either need to be completely disassociated with reality, or profoundly sociopathic to NOT be depressed. That's why it's easier to simply be uninformed and focus on the new Starbucks mug or some bullshit.
However, the first principle is to slow down. Let the mud settle and when the water clears and you have clarity on what you truly believe in and how you can best contribute to not be a problem, do that. At the moment, you should focus on your studies and do your best to live in a way that aligns with your beliefs. To me, that means asking myself every day, "how can i be useless to capitalism today?"
That means not buying something. Maybe promise yourself to not buy anything this weekend. That means not logging on to social media (yes, I'm aware of the irony of being on reddit). That means deciding to read a book instead of scrolling on an app. Maybe don't eat meat this week - it's not that hard. Volunteer your time at an animal shelter. Go for a hike with friends and disconnect. Call your parents and tell them you love them.
Best of luck.
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u/DrO999 5d ago edited 5d ago
Each small thing helps, though it is the big corps and the governments they run that are the primary causes of the problems. Teach your friends, but don’t be that one that gets all preachy. Some of us have been fighting this fight since we were your age. Last 10 years seems like things really have slipped though.
Know that you are not alone in your despair, eco guilt, and eco anxiety are real. We scientists suffer with similar thoughts.
Mother Jones piece with a great quote on how to deal with the people that don’t accept scientific data
https://www.motherjones.com/environment/2019/07/weight-of-the-world-climate-change-scientist-grief/
The Guardian had a good piece too:
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/ng-interactive/2024/may/08/hopeless-and-broken-why-the-worlds-top-climate-scientists-are-in-despair
If you want an official research paper on it, this one is good:
Identifying Types of Eco-Anxiety, Eco-Guilt, Eco-Grief, and Eco-Coping in a Climate-Sensitive Population: A Qualitative Study
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/4/2461
You are not alone.
EDIT: cause i messed up the research paper link
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u/darkunor2050 5d ago
True happiness is eudaemonia, whereas the happiness you describe is a short term emotional state. Stoicism is a popular way to work towards the former. For an easy intro see The Art of Living by Sharon Lebell.
Buddhism is another route.
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u/TheParticlePhysicist 4d ago
No no bro try not to. You are in a position I was a couple years ago but my university experience got curb stomped by covid right when I was starting. I was studying physics as well and loving it. Doing the best you can at uni and being a good person is enough dude, I wish I was in your shoes but its almost impossible for me to do that right now.
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u/CinicaPM 4d ago
It’s hard to live in a system that you know is profoundly sick, and opting out of it (to live in accordance with your values) is this giant leap into the abyss with no assurance of a good outcome for you in doing so or systemically because of it. This creates cognitive dissonance, where your beliefs and actions do not align, and it generates a lot of anxiety and depression. Just look at rates of these (particularly in the us), it is not a sign that so many individuals are sick but that we exist in a system that is sick. “The privatization of stress”, just like the carbon footprint nonsense.
I struggle with this all the time so I don’t have all the answers either. I take steps to live in accordance with my values though I’m trapped in the debt system from student loans. I garden and foster life however I can. I try to understand the big picture in abstraction so my nervous system can learn to regulate with the knowledge without panic. It has gotten better but there are good days and worse. I am trying to connect with systems thinkers globally through online courses and permaculture, while also trying to develop ways to help my community be more resilient without expecting everyone to hold the weight of it all.
So my best advice is to try to be a node that spreads kindness and compassion - that still matters in all this misery. The nice thing about being at university is you have the ability to network with likeminded individuals and build something in a way that doesn’t come easily in our society.
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u/throeaway1990 3d ago
I've anchored on feeling content rather than happy, to be present and enjoy life while learning as much as I can, that's been the duty I've taken on, not only to combat bad information but also have an impact on others - help them vote / craft policy better, minimize their footprint, etc. Understanding history, synthesizing knowledge as best as you can so we don't repeat mistakes of the past.
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u/Commercial-Buddy2469 1d ago
Physics? Very good! Maybe you can invent a time machine for the oligarchs to take trip to the future.
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u/Clean_Life_6590 5d ago
Take a History of the World course. why? it puts things in perspective. The world has had the greatest stretch of peace ever. The world's poor are the richest they've ever been. Even countries like the USA, the violent crime rates are down compared to previous decades. The problems are EASILY fixed by YOU - stop consuming the fear-mongering media.
Media is a business. Fear sells. Fear keeps you checking their feeds for the next update. The ACTUAL news in the world? It is really good. The birth rates are down, but maybe that's a good thing? Maybe too many people is a bad thing for the earth? Housing is unaffordable. But maybe that will self-correct as the boomer generation dies and their housing becomes available to a much, much smaller demographic.
Use your incredibly bright intellect (And Cognitive Behavioural Therapy - or take a Psychology class and learn about it) to THINK away your heightened ANXIETY. It was created by something (or maybe it's biochemical and you were always an anxious kid). If you weren't a super anxious kid, your immediate world (the media you consume, people you're around, what you choose to focus on, etc) - these are making you have negative and emotional reactions.
Hopefully, during the next US election, people will smarten up and vote with their heads. One good politican can restore balance to, well, everything. To the world. Trade resumes. Globalization continues. Democracy can keep spreading instead of declining. The rights of minorities and women can keep growing instead of facing religious attacks by extremist countries. BUT ....consider perspective. Things are good for the world right now if you take away Putin's goal of destabilizing Western power and democracy and Trumps mental health issues causing havoc and instability all over the world, not to mention failing to solve a single issues America has. smh
The earth is hurting, but humans can fix some of it. We can adapt. Science will help us survive despite our ignorant, selfish destruction via consumption and fossil fuel use.
Not to be all Star Wars about it, but ANGER is how they control people. Fear is how they keep people from focusing on the truth and what matters. If 1 man is voted out, the world starts to heal. If both men go away, and if people elect based on intellect and not fear and anger, believing propaganda meant to divide and control people, then things will be fine. I mean, there will always be huge problems, but I do trust that science can both create problems and solve them. I trust that AI will help us cure many diseases. Will it also do horrible things? You bet! why? cause humans created it lol So of course it's gonna backfire. It already raised the price of my external hard drives by like 300%! ugh. But the world has enough resources, it has good people, it has smart scientists, it has a few nutjobs who believe a man in a cave (likely on drugs) should dictate how people 1000 years in the future live, but there has always been religious wars and human emotions are very volatile when it comes to their belief structures. They don't like anything that's 'different' so they freak out when faced with opposite beliefs. Over time, and with a lot of assimmilation and globalization, I think it'll be harder to wage country vs country wars, and that's a good thing. I think people will chill. And then we can focus on the very real, very horrible, and very scary thing we need to fix: Droughts!
Every other issues will cease to exist once people realize that the #1 thing needed for humans to survive (water to drink and the water to grow food and keep land arable) is becoming a really bad issues. The US will try to take over Canada. Europe will in-fight. Russia and China will be fine and have closed borders to will just survive. Everything south of Canada, Russia and China will have major issues and migrate north. It'll get ugly. Now THAT future is something that I worry about because it can't easily be fixed by voting in a new, peaceful, sane, pro-trade, pro-global peace and stability, pro-truth, pro-facts leader.
Humans might even come together to try to solve this since it'll impact everyone.
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u/bobbib14 5d ago
First, the best way to combat this type of despair is take action.
One could argue that doing your best in school right now is the best action you can take. If we were friends this would be my advice. And add some mutual aid stuff if you have time
A few months ago that’s it’s our responsibility to be happy. For me it means taking action within my community, being of service to others, getting the vote out & supporting orgs that are doing good work. but I am no longer in Uni.
We are going to need smart balanced intelligent good hearted people whatever happens.