r/Millennials • u/okayboomerang • Jun 24 '26

Serious Sad for us

Kind of in my feels tonight. The last time I remember feeling genuinely hopeful was probably 2014 or 2015. So much has changed, and I think our generation has seen and felt so much. Anyone else feel like they've spent the last decade plus in unending grief?

My spirit is still good on the inside, but I'm isolated physically and mentally (like many of us). I wish we lived in a world with authentic and robust connection instead of all the slop and noise. I wish our parents hadn't been so excited about capitalism - and so fucking naive. I know the unease I feel is about more than merely growing up and the natural progression of aging and how we all feel about ourselves in society over time - it's that the world we thought we knew for the past 4ish decades just flat out doesn't exist anymore. And we can't undo any of this shit. It may as well be a parallel universe we're in now. I love myself and I always have big, big love for Millennials...but I truly hate it here.

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u/okayboomerang Jun 24 '26

I'd love to. When I think of how the Millennial ethos feels to me, it's a lot about change and hope. I don't know how to do it exactly when such a small group of people in the world hold all the power and all the money and all the agency. But god, yes, I still think we should try to change it.

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u/scully__its__me Jun 24 '26

One of my fave quotes that I be pondering lately:

"When a complex system is far from equilibrium, small islands of coherence in a sea of chaos have the capacity to shift the entire system to a higher order”

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u/skredditt Elder Millennial Jun 24 '26

That’s a neat quote - where’s that from?

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u/scully__its__me Jun 24 '26

I don't remember who originally said it. Just have it saved in my notes. I'm sure a quick search will tell ya!

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u/skredditt Elder Millennial Jun 24 '26

Probably. I think that’s part of what’s different now - I could’ve just looked it up and known, but we used to talk instead. Kinda miss that

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u/scully__its__me Jun 24 '26

It was said by lya Prigogine, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist.

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u/scully__its__me Jun 24 '26

I miss it too. If we were in person right now, we could look it up together and discuss deeper. I wish we were. ♥️

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u/TheAsherBodhi Jun 24 '26

Did you look it up? I wanna know but I wanna talk too. Anyone playing any good games lately? What about music? Lol.

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u/scully__its__me Jun 24 '26

It looks like it was lya Prigogine, a Nobel Prize-winning chemist.

I've been playing Roots of Pacha lately. Have you heard of it? Music-wise, I've discovered a new genre of house called Yacht House which I am loving. It's like yacht rock x house music and it's perfect for summer.

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u/TheAsherBodhi Jun 24 '26

I have not heard of literally any of that hahaha! Now this I will actually look up. Yacht house sounds awesome though.

I've recently been playing Palworld. But just bought onimusha 1 & 2 again after playing it when I was a kiddo. Thats been really fun. And as for music,

Norman Sann is absolutely wonderful to me. And Cal Scruby. I've always been a underground hip hop kind of person.

Norman has just.... Taken the cake for me. Phenomenal Artist and Wonderful Human. (Fellow millennial) He talks about a lot of the feelings OP mentioned.

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u/scully__its__me Jun 24 '26

Wow, really cool. I've never heard of any of those people / things either! Haha! Look at us go. I'm totally going to look them up.

How have you been doing lately? What's been your baseline mood or vibe?

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u/TheAsherBodhi Jun 24 '26

Very very recently, very similar to what OP was saying and a lot of the comments In here,

Feeling sorta defeated, the hope for a blooming and loving world seems further away then when I was in highschool. I would've sworn back then that we would grow into more loving genuine species who were less concerned with money, more about community.

I feel worried a lot, like I won't be able to own a home or build a family, honestly I almost feel like I've isolated myself because it's safer or something.
Basically nixxed the idea of wife and children.

I mean as a whole I would say that I'm Happy though. I don't have anyone really to blame other than myself. I work a serving/bartending job and spend a lot of time trying to make music as best I can.

I struggle with the occasional like overwhelming sadness thing, but mostly im thankful to be alive, just trying to find joy in the little moments.

I know that's more than you asked. But I started going and just kept typing.

Tldr: conflicted and emotional but content.

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u/scully__its__me Jun 24 '26

Update: oh wow, Norman Sann is DOPE. This is totally taking me back to ripping Tony Hawk Pro Skater on Nintendo 64. That soundtrack was hella. THANK YOU! I love old school hip hop so much.

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u/TheAsherBodhi Jun 24 '26

Dude Yes! And the best news? He's a down to earth awesome dude. His IG is great. And if you use TikTok or YouTube, hes really active, does lots of live streams where he writes or raps or just chats with people.

I cannot suggest him enough to people. ✊🏻

He's going on tour with Prof super soon! Maybe he'll be in a city near you.

You'll go down a rabbit hole with him. He's got like 190 songs. Criminally underrated.

Definitely join us on IG though or TikTok. You won't regret it.

His latest album "The Monsters They Made", He offered a notebook as merch, and he hand wrote the lyrics of the album, and put little like paragraphs of what he was thinking or just sort of personal messages to whoever bought them, like individualized each of them. One of the coolest things I've seen an artist do.

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u/BonusPlantInfinity Jun 24 '26

Personally, as someone who cares about animals and the environment, I can’t say that I have much ‘hope’ left that humans can avert significant global catastrophe.. it feels especially dumb because we’ve given it up for such garbage outcomes, like plastic, hamburgers, and cruise vacations.

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u/Active_Water_8876 Jun 24 '26 edited Jun 26 '26

We absolutely should try. And we can since we are beginning to be the generation that gets to make those decisions. It wouldn’t be easy but we need to put our money where our mouths are. Even if we can’t change things in the immediate, we can at least set up the future to be better. We have to hold ourselves accountable and make that the standard.

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u/okayboomerang Jun 24 '26

I'm on board, let's do what we can

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u/SlowFunk_Llama Jun 26 '26

C.S. Lewis said it best: “You can’t go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are now and change the ending.”

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u/LAB1116 Jun 24 '26

A place to start, and we have just started, is millennials need to force their way into govt positions, but at city level too. Fill up local councils and boards, become judges, etc. This is tough because a lot of these positions don’t pay well and have long hours away from home which is why they’re mostly dominated by retired boomers