I feel as if I had a lot more trepidation about the future before the pandemic. I wasn’t so sure if I had a clear view of how my own personal philosophies were meant to engage with the scramble of building, and then surviving, my own life. That seemed like a luxury for people higher up the hierarchy of needs than I was.
I feel like I got a lot wrong even as I see how I was equipped with so many tools that I used clumsily. I wish, in some ways, that I’d been surer of my own knowledge earlier. I didn’t trust myself. I felt like a Cassandra doomed to see dire outcomes.
And yet I retained some sense of optimism. You can see my doomer arcs clearly across the written records as systems failed me and then failed others. Natural disasters and chronic illness in very real ways forced me to overcome any inclination towards a culture of nihilism. I found that I couldn’t give up.
There was no comfort to be found in saving myself but I did. And now I find myself simply done with trying to muddle along. I am getting much louder about my own alliances and beliefs. I am updating my priors and throwing myself into fights. I am choosing sides even when I don’t care for all my compatriots. Neutrality is easier to maintain at the edge of an empire surely but I hard limits on what I find to be acceptable compromises in a free society.