hi there, i’m a doomer

If you are looking for a bleak and dreary imagination of the future then you have come to the right place.

Pessimism (Yay! for doomsday)

It is a truth universally acknowledged that if you are currently struggling in a dead-end job that barely pays the bills and are just basically drudging through this post-apocalyptic wasteland in your 20’s right now, all hope is naught and there is no point in dreaming of a bright future.

All current evidence (of which I will willfully not cite nor include anywhere in this post) leads to the debilitating fact that the world is on it’s way to a cataclysmic end. This ‘cataclysmic end’ is neither a loud, dazzling bang nor an earth-shattering conclusion to our short-lived existence but it is simply just the rapid decay of everything around us and the inconsolable pang of sorrow for all the things we have lost.

Look around you and tell me that everything is okay when it clearly is not. Everything you read here is purely anecdotal so all the wide generalizations and sweeping declarations are all based on my own experiences and thoughts.

Privilege (or lack thereof)

I am currently in my mid-20’s and I barely have anything I own to my name. The wages are just abysmal. Everything is expensive as heck. You would think that finishing a college education will be your sure-fire ticket to a stable, well-paying career but *cricket noises* nope, no, nuh-uh, that isn’t just the case especially in this day and age.

It’s not even on the subject of whether your field of expertise is on demand or just overly saturated; sure some might be luckier than others but that is honestly just the tiniest fraction of the minority. People my age are broke, depressed and utterly void of any positive imaginings of the future. (I would like to direct you to this particular video essay that talks about the concept of Doomers that just hit way too close to home, although your own perception of the world may vary depending on a lot of factors; this video essay has, in one way or another, properly breached the subject to those uninitiated)

Maybe not all of us are struggling to live paycheck to paycheck, maybe some of you got some rich, upper class upbringing and you don’t have any worries about bills or debts or none of that working-class shit. Maybe you do not live in a third-world country ripe with corruption or under totalitarian regimes hell-bent on killing populations of its people.

Well, that’s definitely good for you. You’ve got a couple less worries than the worst of us.

I would rather not turn this into a contest of who’s got the most problems to deal with here, but it actually puts into perspective just how drastically different your life would be depending on which part of the globe you are currently in, or how useless your passport is, or the color of your skin, or your luck on bagging opportunities, or how rich your parents are. It basically just boils down to privilege. And of course being the petty, spoilsport that I am, I will be rightfully indignant of the fact that I will probably never get to experience the privileges peers my age who live in relatively wealthy countries take for granted while I slowly rot away in abject poverty.

I have this pet-peeve when I see people from the other side of the globe complain about their perfectly normal and often highly privileged lives. I once had a conversation with a good friend of mine that really slapped some sense of reality into me. The reality that I’m just an unlucky heap of misfortune and circumstance.

She was telling me about this big personal problem of hers and she would like to see if I can help her weigh the pros and cons of said conundrum. Long story short, she can’t make a decision on this house she owns – whether to live in it or rent it out if she plans to move to the other side of the city. She was troubled by the fact that she can’t seem to know what to do with her house. I was obviously the last person she could’ve asked for help on matters regarding real estate. Not only have I never owned a house my entire life but this whole thing being a ‘problem’ was entirely foreign to me I had to make sure she wasn’t just pulling my leg. I know she didn’t mean any harm in trying to get my opinion of it, but our entire exchange opened my eyes to the deep chasm of divide between her current circumstances and mine.

Here I was, in the middle of a city in a desert utterly foreign to me while I work my back every day to earn a meager salary that barely covers the bills and expenses I am shouldering for my own sustenance and that of the family I left back home who, in case I fail to mention, are also not in the best of circumstances at all what with the cesspool of shit that is the Philippines, currently.

im in a bad place rn  not mentally i just live in the philippines

— jas (@kimiznki) May 23, 2020

While she, over in her well-adjusted life (somewhere I won’t specify but let’s just say it’s in Europe), is wracking her brains out on whether to live in a house she owns under her own name or to move to the other side of the city in an apartment she has no trouble paying for because she has money.

I do appreciate my friend, a lot! I do not take it as a slight against her that she’s having first-world problems I can simply not relate to. In fact, I feel somewhat happy that she sees me as a trustworthy friend she can turn to in times of need. And if there’s any slight chance she might be reading this, I hope she knows I appreciate her friendship and she can always come to me for (useless) advice.

This just goes to show that there’s a stark disparity between populations of people that are determined by where they live or which passport they own.

I feel like I am terribly missing out on the prime of my 20’s by being a slave to my low-paying desk job in the middle of the desert with only one day-off a week (I don’t even get to enjoy because all I do is sleep in or get laundry done) and I’ve got nothing else to show for it other than my very grumpy countenance and pessimism.

Let’s just say the big cloud of doom looming above my head didn’t just sprout out of nowhere. People are shaped by their circumstances. Do you resist the inescapable prison of circumstance or do you simply allow it to consume you and take over your life? Isn’t life itself just a wild, unruly bunch of circumstances? Do you actually have a choice in what you do or what you feel when everything is predicated by a set of circumstances beyond anyone’s control? Why am I asking all these completely rhetorical questions stemming from my nonexistent degree in philosophy? Let’s not figure that out.

As previously mentioned, this entire thing you’re reading is more of a wishy-washy take on a singular perspective that does not conform to any sort of cohesiveness nor structure, so let’s all just leave it at that.

The Environmental Crux of it All

Watch any nature documentary with Sir David Attenborough’s signature narration as every minute spent watching hyenas leaping or eagles flying also pushes you to the edge of complete desperation and utter helplessness as the picturesque landscapes and breathtaking display of nature drags you back to the stark reality of how we’re all needlessly destroying every last ecosystem out there; not only disrupting the natural balance of everything but basically getting everyone of us and all the generations to come fucked up so bad. We’re in the middle of the next mass extinction and it’s just fucking insane how there hasn’t been a more aggressive and unified response to this other than world leaders possibly agreeing or disagreeing with each other on what to do in the next 50 years when most if not all of them are already decaying six feet under while our generation will be the one to take the brunt of the extreme damages we’ve done to this planet.

I can still recall a very dated news story I saw in TV when I was still in grade school. It was a weather report where the local weatherman also doubled as the resident trivia guy for the kids watching at home. He was doing the usual weather update for yet another typhoon that’s about to hit the country. By the end of his weather report, he proceeded to tell the day’s trivia and it was all about how some major cities in my country will eventually be submerged due to the rising sea levels caused by global warming. It was a generous estimate based on existing data that the city I grew up in will one day be underwater during my lifetime. I was shell-shocked. Why isn’t anyone else panicking about this? Why is no one doing anything to address this? This is isn’t just a tiny, interesting tidbit of information! Entire cities will be swallowed by oceans but no one bats an eye? The lack of urgency is just appalling. This was my predicament 15 years ago but even up to this day, I see no relevant change in people’s attitude as the world’s impending doom draws even nearer.

I know this all sounds like an unhinged fulmination from a doomer, but as evidenced by the long-winded way I have presented my trials and tribulations in life through everything you have read so far, it’s not all baseless ramblings nor delusional contempt and I’ve got every right to be the frenetic doomer gal that I am.

I don’t want to delude myself into thinking that everything will be alright in the end.

Do you always have to be positive, or think positive in the face of societal decay and ruin? Is it not valid to feel utterly helpless when everything around you is spiraling downwards? Why must the default always be positivity and false hopes? Why must a realistic approach and a realistic response be frowned upon? What’s the point of trying to maintain a positive facade when everything around you is in the state of constant turmoil and stress. Wouldn’t it be just so counterproductive and mentally draining to pretend everything is okay when it absolutely isn’t? Why remain complacent and seemingly unaffected when this helps no one?

I don’t want to drag anyone else down this hole of depression and negativity when we all still have long, fulfilling lives ahead of us. Or do we? Do we really have the luxury to live long enough to enjoy the fruits of our labor? The way things are looking right now, I’d consider myself lucky to even survive well into my 30’s.

In conclusion

There is no right or wrong way to live your life. Although, I would highly prefer if there were more years I can look forward to with optimism and sunny disposition, not like this— this, being the utter helplessness and morbid pessimism of the future.

I feel somewhat envious of the generation before me, who might have also shouldered somewhat similar pressures and worries that we do now although probably to a lesser extent, I mean every year just goes worse from here. They were able to plan their lives and dream of the future and whether those dreams were realized or not, at least they still had the opportunity to dwell on them. The current state the world is in is just a horrible joke and we all wish things could be better.

Not only am I envious but I am doubly let down by the selfishness of those who could’ve prevented things from going down south— irreparably. It’s these major realizations you have to deal with and accept growing up. The world definitely isn’t just sunshine and rainbows, regrettably far from it. You begin to see how much people are simply just driven by greed and contempt once you are out of the protective shell of your ignorance. Every day the sparkle of your childhood naivety fades little by little. It’s tough but you have to plow through it and survive (somewhat). Giving up is also an option but that’s on you, hun. Do whatever you need to cope