Doomer? Nope, not me. I do believe this is an age of mass psychosis. I do suspect and expect the state of the Nation, the state of the world is doing to get worse before it gets better. I am slightly careful what I say and where I say it, as I know I could be jailed, or worse for wrong-think.
Yep, all of the above and then some.
Can I change it, a chicken in every pot, a brain in every politician, create a season with rhyme and reason? Not only no but sheol no. None the less I can do my best with what I've got, take care of me and mine, hold the door for ladies and though I'll never ever run for office, even occasionally kiss babies!
So! In spite of my first two paragraphs I'm delighted to be right here, right now. Things ain't the best in our world today but t'ain't all bad either. I may not be able to save the world but if I can bring a smile to the face of a grocery clerk having a bad day, I'm not complaining.
And anyway, in another's words:
------
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things
I cannot change,
Courage to change the
things I can, and the
wisdom to know the difference.
(Many folks think it stops there, they don't know that he went on to say:)
I love the full Serenity Prayer; our family has memorized it. The Christian 12-step Celebrate Recovery program uses it too. It is so rich and good! Great to shape the worldview; also Charles Swindoll said something like Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% your attitude/response.
People like to mock things like that as mere platitudes and such, but I think the average person would do well to embrace the discipline of living by an uncomplicated but demanding code.
Exactly. For our short Family Bible time post-dinner we rotate between the Lord’s Prayer, Serenity Prayer & Doxology. We all need the rhythm and theological guideposts for our faith, and working it out in fear and trembling.
Jesus is Lord. That changes everything; or should. We can expect trouble, I don't think that is doomer. We can trust God. We can love our neighbor as ourself. We can greet the day with joy. Imperfectly and inconsistently perhaps.
The other thing that people forget is that, if one believes in Jesus Christ, and in the forces of Good and Evil, there is the very REAL possibility that you as an individual lose in this life. And that this should be embraced. What else is the Martyr? He is the spiritual victor. He is the one that loses, materially, and gains the crown, has won the race, and is embraced by our Lord as the very real, not just image, but in the Catholic Doctrine, truly having the Graces and being close in in reality to Our Lord in Truth.
So yeah, we don't always 'win', and yet we do. Get used to growing in virtue, bravery, and not timid and weak.
The video I linked to from Met. Christoferos goes into that exact point. Our goal and ideas about victory are not always what God has in mind for us, and since He loves us and knows us better than we can know or love ourselves, it works out if we trust Him.
I think most folks that i converse with here on SS would place me solidly in the "doomer" category. I did some self-examination based on what was written in this post and not for the first time in regards to this. Definitely has a ring of truth to it, for me personally. I do, by outward appearances, present as "doomer"
However, that's not entirely true. I do have faith and hope and joy. I am saved by Grace. And i read the Book. In my many years of seeking the truth behind the veil of lies, i have come to realize a vast, unimaginably so, network that seeks to depopulate most of humanity and assume control of literally every necessity of life - food, air, water (as well as our interactions and basic freedoms) has been guiding everyone to this point. And now, their long term plans are coming to fruition and nothing has slowed their progress. It's Biblical. This has all been prophesied.
There are no legal, political or kinetic ways to stop what is coming, not without Divine Intervention. He can do that, if He chooses. I'm not seeing any indication of such, but it's always possible. I've come to believe that humanity may not get another "win" before His return. That's where i'm at. And yes, i'm mad about the roadblocks that have been set before all of us for all of our lives.
I have adopted a "realist" attitude with regards to the future. It's not going to be very nice, just like the Bible says. But having this personal epiphany, i decided to opt for a course of action that creates, not destroys. That is probably the best use of our limited resources and definitely fits with Biblical principles.
We all doom now and then. The essay opened with an account of my own dooming, after all. My point was to offer some of the same hope to others as I saw (and have seen) in my own life. It’s not where you are that matters, but where you’re headed. And don’t look back.
Thank you for this article. Good reminder for those of us who are aware of machinations in this world and despair. Embrace the theological virtues and reject the "theological vices", as despair never built anything good, true and beautiful.
Yes. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the father.
Consider the subject of pagan hope. It means hoping in things that are reasonably likely to happen and reasonably likely to improve the situation. Pagan faith means believing in things that are somewhat probable. Pagan charity means giving to those who will make good use of the gift and generate some sort of ROI, even if it is a 'paid forward' ROI, in other words it is Effective Altruism.
As Chesterton tells us(either Orthodoxy or Everlasting Man usual comment about my laziness in citation), the theological virtue of hope means hoping when the situation offers no grounds for hope. The virtue of faith means believing in what cannot reasonably be and the virtue of charity means loving those who are entirely unlovable. It means setting your love on those who will never improve, never return your love in any reasonable scenario. The virtue of charity might be summed up as 'throwing your money in a hole' or 'throwing good money after bad'. It is in short offensive to the respectable and sensible because it is so scandalously gracious. After all, if there is one thing certain in the Christian religion it is that the price of our redemption was far too high. There is no scenario in which your salvation and mine and everyone's all summed up is worth the Lord of Glory.
I guess what I am saying, and it looks like our good Bacon Commander has said much the same quite well and plainly, is that my motivation to act is not so much that I think that my actions will change the world and bring victory to God and the Good Republic, but because I am a man and I have lost enough things precious to me without fighting. I have stood there like a stupid cow and watched people and things that I love slip away and I will never do that again.
I am not a doomer. In fact, what I see tells me that globohomo will not long survive whether we do anything or not. Their doom is baked in. My fear is that we will defeat the enemy and discover that we are the same as they. My fear is that we win and the new boss is the same as the old boss. My fear is that 'our side' throws away their humanity in the quest for victory, that we gain the world and lose our souls.
Incessant negativism is a millstone around the neck, but Trump talks about the greatness of America and its people, and also about the problems we face. Isn’t that the real world?
This is very true about Trump. I suspect his essential positivity is the main reason he’s doing so well against the unprecedented and enormous challenges he faces. Compare his speech in the Bronx last week with Biden’s commencement address at Morehouse. Apart from the fact that the current president is a dotard, he basically told the young black men graduating that they could expect to be shot by the police in a country that despised them. Trump gave the standard Boomercon platitudes about race and American identity, but sold it with such genuine enthusiasm that it went over well in one of the bluest parts of America.
If elected, Trump will have a pretty full plate. He has to attack the corruption in government while setting the American economy on a path to prosperity. I hope I live long enough to see him elected, and the results of his hard work. Right, wrong or indifferent, he works harder than any President in my lifetime…
As usual, you know how to pull the thread from my thoughts. I’ve never been able to stay pessimistic for very long even when there was no reason not to. Being self-employed my whole life, I had to embrace uncertainty and fear since I realized early on that no one was coming to my rescue. I had burned my boats and there was no going back to building another man’s dream. I had to get fit (couldn’t afford health care) and get up every morning being unemployed until I produced something. We’re not finished yet my friends.
The acts of simple decency you highlight at the beginning are the rule in my opinion, and what we see in the media are the exceptions. We don't stop to think of what a worse world we'd be living in if a typical newspaper headline was "auto repair shop does not take advantage of a customer." We misinterpret the news as the norm rather than then exception. Thanks for this excellent post.
One could make some grand conspiracy theory out of it, that the media is just some big demoralization campaign, but I think like so much else in society it’s just appealing to a vice with a ready market, in this case sloth. Don’t bother doing anything, the world sucks- sit back and CONSUME. Nothing breaks that spell like doing something for others, and seeing it done in turn.
I threw away ten years of my life mired in the slough. Wasted, addicted, not unfamiliar to a jail cell, and all of it, ultimately, because of what is now called a doomer mindset. I was so foolish, but by the grace of God I am what I am (now).
Not that I was one to be stirred to new life by some by some heavenly vision, no, but I got up one morning, hungover as usual, and went to a gym, got a membership, and asked some stranger how to deadlift.
So I read a bunch of the doomer stuff and agree with a lot of it but man are they lacking that élan vital. They go on about freedom but are scared to death of it. I skim much of their writing because I’m afraid of being pulled back into that mindset.
The appeal, and danger, of such dooming is that it confirms you in your inclination to do nothing and sit life out in indolence. It’s why I think to the choice to exercise is such a defining one. It’s the most obvious way to see tangible changes resulting from the choice to take control. It’s why fit people tend to be RW.
Augustine saw the sack of Rome; he didn't let it get to him, as they say.
Bentham saw Revolutionary France crown an emperor; that didn't stop him (would that it had, alas).
Who will see the Fall of the Dollar and the conversion of Notre Dame to a loudspeaker-equipped mosque? Whoever it is, he will hopefully remember that it isn't the end of the world, it's just the end of "us."
Yes, yes, yes. Be strong and courageous! When are those words uttered in the Bible? Generally, when people are going where they haven't gone before. Paraphrasing you; it is not the end of the world, but the end of the world that they knew. Sometimes it has huge markers (Joshua & troupe crossing the Jordan) and others not.
Well, I think there’s just a lot on Substack! it’s easy to go down different rabbit holes and forget who you read and what you read where but like the author of this Substack time and perspective! And right now I don’t have much time to post anything because my mother is nearing the end of her life and I just don’t have time to create right now. my mother has dementia and is in hospice, but she has been a good servant to the Lord and I don’t worry about it. I will miss her when she’s gone, but I have faith!
I think it’s a matter of time and perspective. You’ll get where you’re meant to be, at the pace you’re meant too, so long as you keep up the good content.
Empirically, the average concentration of human negativity seems to drop off with greater separation from urban centers in both time (past personal experience) and space -- see your Honda episode as it relates to for an example of the space relationship. This is not at all an explanation of the phenomenon, just a potentially useful mapped relationship. Speaking of old Honda Civics -- we've had similar isolated experiences with our usually (99.9%+) nicely running 2001 model. A couple of times it's been a loose or dirty battery connection, but most recently it was something ephemeral in the ignition key sensor system that only one of our two functioning ignition keys only temporarily manifested. The world is largely a mystery, and old Hondas can become even more mysterious as they mature.
My working days are long over but I still recall this conversation with a Lefty colleague: “The trouble with you conservatives” he said “is that it’s all doom and gloom with you. You’re addicted to it.” My initial reaction: “Me?..gloomy!...Breath of Spring, Me.” But then, on reflection, the thought occurred that maybe he had a point. Is the grimace of the conservative, as he looks out on a rising tide of intellectual fashion or an ebbing away of some cherished traditional social mores, only a kind of sea-sickness? Is one’s dogged conservatism as out-of-balance and unrealistic as the latest Progressive cause celebre of the p.c. fashionista that one so despises? One thinks of the Serenity Poem...cheerfully accepting ‘the things you cannot change’; in this case, the philosophical incontinence of some of your fellow men. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/are-we-making-progress
Recognition that things are not well is important. Pointing out that things are not well is also important. But it’s even more important not to stop there. The most important thing to remember is that things are supposed to be well, and that we’re supposed to try to make them well.
The only thing I'd to contribute is that I've never had a bad AAA experience (and as someone who's driven multiple cars into the ground, I've had many.) In my opinion it's well worth the money, and a good reminder that sometimes things work the way they're supposed to. And I hope you get to complete your hike soon!
Doomer? Nope, not me. I do believe this is an age of mass psychosis. I do suspect and expect the state of the Nation, the state of the world is doing to get worse before it gets better. I am slightly careful what I say and where I say it, as I know I could be jailed, or worse for wrong-think.
Yep, all of the above and then some.
Can I change it, a chicken in every pot, a brain in every politician, create a season with rhyme and reason? Not only no but sheol no. None the less I can do my best with what I've got, take care of me and mine, hold the door for ladies and though I'll never ever run for office, even occasionally kiss babies!
So! In spite of my first two paragraphs I'm delighted to be right here, right now. Things ain't the best in our world today but t'ain't all bad either. I may not be able to save the world but if I can bring a smile to the face of a grocery clerk having a bad day, I'm not complaining.
And anyway, in another's words:
------
God, grant me the serenity
to accept the things
I cannot change,
Courage to change the
things I can, and the
wisdom to know the difference.
(Many folks think it stops there, they don't know that he went on to say:)
Living one day at a time;
Enjoying one moment at a time;
Accepting hardship as the
pathway to peace.
Taking, as He did, this
sinful world as it is,
not as I would have it.
Trusting that He will make
all things right if I
surrender to His Will;
That I may be reasonably happy
in this life, and supremely
happy with Him forever in
the next.
Amen
- Reinhold Niebuhr (1926)
----
Doomer?
You make the changes you can, and oftentimes you discover you can do more than you supposed.
I love the full Serenity Prayer; our family has memorized it. The Christian 12-step Celebrate Recovery program uses it too. It is so rich and good! Great to shape the worldview; also Charles Swindoll said something like Life is 10% what happens to you and 90% your attitude/response.
People like to mock things like that as mere platitudes and such, but I think the average person would do well to embrace the discipline of living by an uncomplicated but demanding code.
Exactly. For our short Family Bible time post-dinner we rotate between the Lord’s Prayer, Serenity Prayer & Doxology. We all need the rhythm and theological guideposts for our faith, and working it out in fear and trembling.
Thank you very much.
Jesus is Lord. That changes everything; or should. We can expect trouble, I don't think that is doomer. We can trust God. We can love our neighbor as ourself. We can greet the day with joy. Imperfectly and inconsistently perhaps.
The troubles are indeed inevitable. To doom or not to doom in response, that is the question.
Good Essay.
The other thing that people forget is that, if one believes in Jesus Christ, and in the forces of Good and Evil, there is the very REAL possibility that you as an individual lose in this life. And that this should be embraced. What else is the Martyr? He is the spiritual victor. He is the one that loses, materially, and gains the crown, has won the race, and is embraced by our Lord as the very real, not just image, but in the Catholic Doctrine, truly having the Graces and being close in in reality to Our Lord in Truth.
So yeah, we don't always 'win', and yet we do. Get used to growing in virtue, bravery, and not timid and weak.
The video I linked to from Met. Christoferos goes into that exact point. Our goal and ideas about victory are not always what God has in mind for us, and since He loves us and knows us better than we can know or love ourselves, it works out if we trust Him.
Ah ok. I didn't watch because some of the children are still sleeping here. Definitely agree
It’s in Arabic; I just follow the subtitles. I often watch him when tending to my own sleeping girls.
Good essay. Good points.
I think most folks that i converse with here on SS would place me solidly in the "doomer" category. I did some self-examination based on what was written in this post and not for the first time in regards to this. Definitely has a ring of truth to it, for me personally. I do, by outward appearances, present as "doomer"
However, that's not entirely true. I do have faith and hope and joy. I am saved by Grace. And i read the Book. In my many years of seeking the truth behind the veil of lies, i have come to realize a vast, unimaginably so, network that seeks to depopulate most of humanity and assume control of literally every necessity of life - food, air, water (as well as our interactions and basic freedoms) has been guiding everyone to this point. And now, their long term plans are coming to fruition and nothing has slowed their progress. It's Biblical. This has all been prophesied.
There are no legal, political or kinetic ways to stop what is coming, not without Divine Intervention. He can do that, if He chooses. I'm not seeing any indication of such, but it's always possible. I've come to believe that humanity may not get another "win" before His return. That's where i'm at. And yes, i'm mad about the roadblocks that have been set before all of us for all of our lives.
I have adopted a "realist" attitude with regards to the future. It's not going to be very nice, just like the Bible says. But having this personal epiphany, i decided to opt for a course of action that creates, not destroys. That is probably the best use of our limited resources and definitely fits with Biblical principles.
Still LFG.
We all doom now and then. The essay opened with an account of my own dooming, after all. My point was to offer some of the same hope to others as I saw (and have seen) in my own life. It’s not where you are that matters, but where you’re headed. And don’t look back.
Thank you for this article. Good reminder for those of us who are aware of machinations in this world and despair. Embrace the theological virtues and reject the "theological vices", as despair never built anything good, true and beautiful.
For me, the worse it all gets, the more I see the growth of Babel/Babylon/Antichrist, the more excited I get for Christ’s return
Maranatha.
Yes. Every knee will bow and every tongue will confess, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, that Jesus is Lord, to the glory of God the father.
Consider the subject of pagan hope. It means hoping in things that are reasonably likely to happen and reasonably likely to improve the situation. Pagan faith means believing in things that are somewhat probable. Pagan charity means giving to those who will make good use of the gift and generate some sort of ROI, even if it is a 'paid forward' ROI, in other words it is Effective Altruism.
As Chesterton tells us(either Orthodoxy or Everlasting Man usual comment about my laziness in citation), the theological virtue of hope means hoping when the situation offers no grounds for hope. The virtue of faith means believing in what cannot reasonably be and the virtue of charity means loving those who are entirely unlovable. It means setting your love on those who will never improve, never return your love in any reasonable scenario. The virtue of charity might be summed up as 'throwing your money in a hole' or 'throwing good money after bad'. It is in short offensive to the respectable and sensible because it is so scandalously gracious. After all, if there is one thing certain in the Christian religion it is that the price of our redemption was far too high. There is no scenario in which your salvation and mine and everyone's all summed up is worth the Lord of Glory.
I guess what I am saying, and it looks like our good Bacon Commander has said much the same quite well and plainly, is that my motivation to act is not so much that I think that my actions will change the world and bring victory to God and the Good Republic, but because I am a man and I have lost enough things precious to me without fighting. I have stood there like a stupid cow and watched people and things that I love slip away and I will never do that again.
I am not a doomer. In fact, what I see tells me that globohomo will not long survive whether we do anything or not. Their doom is baked in. My fear is that we will defeat the enemy and discover that we are the same as they. My fear is that we win and the new boss is the same as the old boss. My fear is that 'our side' throws away their humanity in the quest for victory, that we gain the world and lose our souls.
Incessant negativism is a millstone around the neck, but Trump talks about the greatness of America and its people, and also about the problems we face. Isn’t that the real world?
This is very true about Trump. I suspect his essential positivity is the main reason he’s doing so well against the unprecedented and enormous challenges he faces. Compare his speech in the Bronx last week with Biden’s commencement address at Morehouse. Apart from the fact that the current president is a dotard, he basically told the young black men graduating that they could expect to be shot by the police in a country that despised them. Trump gave the standard Boomercon platitudes about race and American identity, but sold it with such genuine enthusiasm that it went over well in one of the bluest parts of America.
If elected, Trump will have a pretty full plate. He has to attack the corruption in government while setting the American economy on a path to prosperity. I hope I live long enough to see him elected, and the results of his hard work. Right, wrong or indifferent, he works harder than any President in my lifetime…
As usual, you know how to pull the thread from my thoughts. I’ve never been able to stay pessimistic for very long even when there was no reason not to. Being self-employed my whole life, I had to embrace uncertainty and fear since I realized early on that no one was coming to my rescue. I had burned my boats and there was no going back to building another man’s dream. I had to get fit (couldn’t afford health care) and get up every morning being unemployed until I produced something. We’re not finished yet my friends.
So long as there’s one Dwarf left in Moria who still draws breath…
This was an outstanding article. Thank you.
The acts of simple decency you highlight at the beginning are the rule in my opinion, and what we see in the media are the exceptions. We don't stop to think of what a worse world we'd be living in if a typical newspaper headline was "auto repair shop does not take advantage of a customer." We misinterpret the news as the norm rather than then exception. Thanks for this excellent post.
One could make some grand conspiracy theory out of it, that the media is just some big demoralization campaign, but I think like so much else in society it’s just appealing to a vice with a ready market, in this case sloth. Don’t bother doing anything, the world sucks- sit back and CONSUME. Nothing breaks that spell like doing something for others, and seeing it done in turn.
Agreed! Pay attention to what we have agency over rather than reading about doom and gloom.
I threw away ten years of my life mired in the slough. Wasted, addicted, not unfamiliar to a jail cell, and all of it, ultimately, because of what is now called a doomer mindset. I was so foolish, but by the grace of God I am what I am (now).
Not that I was one to be stirred to new life by some by some heavenly vision, no, but I got up one morning, hungover as usual, and went to a gym, got a membership, and asked some stranger how to deadlift.
So I read a bunch of the doomer stuff and agree with a lot of it but man are they lacking that élan vital. They go on about freedom but are scared to death of it. I skim much of their writing because I’m afraid of being pulled back into that mindset.
The appeal, and danger, of such dooming is that it confirms you in your inclination to do nothing and sit life out in indolence. It’s why I think to the choice to exercise is such a defining one. It’s the most obvious way to see tangible changes resulting from the choice to take control. It’s why fit people tend to be RW.
Augustine saw the sack of Rome; he didn't let it get to him, as they say.
Bentham saw Revolutionary France crown an emperor; that didn't stop him (would that it had, alas).
Who will see the Fall of the Dollar and the conversion of Notre Dame to a loudspeaker-equipped mosque? Whoever it is, he will hopefully remember that it isn't the end of the world, it's just the end of "us."
Yes, yes, yes. Be strong and courageous! When are those words uttered in the Bible? Generally, when people are going where they haven't gone before. Paraphrasing you; it is not the end of the world, but the end of the world that they knew. Sometimes it has huge markers (Joshua & troupe crossing the Jordan) and others not.
So, what we need is for someone to write about that which is true, noble, right, pure, lovely, admirable, excellent, and praiseworthy? I know, I know.
It’s not really something you can get enough of.
That’s why I started my ‘stack - I’m a visual artist so my writing is minimal. I wanted to share art as beauty in my Visual Coffee Break.
That's why I started my Substack as well. Looks like you are doing better with it than I am, though.
Keep up the good work 💖
Well, I think there’s just a lot on Substack! it’s easy to go down different rabbit holes and forget who you read and what you read where but like the author of this Substack time and perspective! And right now I don’t have much time to post anything because my mother is nearing the end of her life and I just don’t have time to create right now. my mother has dementia and is in hospice, but she has been a good servant to the Lord and I don’t worry about it. I will miss her when she’s gone, but I have faith!
She’ll be in my prayers.
Thank you so much 🙏🏽✝️
I think it’s a matter of time and perspective. You’ll get where you’re meant to be, at the pace you’re meant too, so long as you keep up the good content.
Empirically, the average concentration of human negativity seems to drop off with greater separation from urban centers in both time (past personal experience) and space -- see your Honda episode as it relates to for an example of the space relationship. This is not at all an explanation of the phenomenon, just a potentially useful mapped relationship. Speaking of old Honda Civics -- we've had similar isolated experiences with our usually (99.9%+) nicely running 2001 model. A couple of times it's been a loose or dirty battery connection, but most recently it was something ephemeral in the ignition key sensor system that only one of our two functioning ignition keys only temporarily manifested. The world is largely a mystery, and old Hondas can become even more mysterious as they mature.
I actually think the issue might be a broken key. Thank you for the insights; it’s another great example of people helping out.
My working days are long over but I still recall this conversation with a Lefty colleague: “The trouble with you conservatives” he said “is that it’s all doom and gloom with you. You’re addicted to it.” My initial reaction: “Me?..gloomy!...Breath of Spring, Me.” But then, on reflection, the thought occurred that maybe he had a point. Is the grimace of the conservative, as he looks out on a rising tide of intellectual fashion or an ebbing away of some cherished traditional social mores, only a kind of sea-sickness? Is one’s dogged conservatism as out-of-balance and unrealistic as the latest Progressive cause celebre of the p.c. fashionista that one so despises? One thinks of the Serenity Poem...cheerfully accepting ‘the things you cannot change’; in this case, the philosophical incontinence of some of your fellow men. https://grahamcunningham.substack.com/p/are-we-making-progress
Recognition that things are not well is important. Pointing out that things are not well is also important. But it’s even more important not to stop there. The most important thing to remember is that things are supposed to be well, and that we’re supposed to try to make them well.
Exactly. This is the missing element. Can't just report on the bad news and misdeeds, we have to present a path forward to fix it.
Not all things are not well ever. While stating some SNAFU one may, probably better should, well admire a flower blooming.
The only thing I'd to contribute is that I've never had a bad AAA experience (and as someone who's driven multiple cars into the ground, I've had many.) In my opinion it's well worth the money, and a good reminder that sometimes things work the way they're supposed to. And I hope you get to complete your hike soon!
It ended up working out and I made my way around the lake I like. Hopefully I’ll get to go again soon as well.