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On a more positive note... by Threetails

On a more positive note, I usually find a way to scrape by regardless of the situation. I survived 2012 with a roof over my head the whole time and I've never had it as bad as I did in September of that year.

I also tend to perform remarkably well in classes when I'm most concerned about poor performance. I've managed to keep my GPA at 3.66, despite battling some horrendous emotional problems and if anything, when I've enjoyed the classes it's been helpful in mitigating stress by keeping me busy with something I don't mind doing (like writing). This means I have a better-than-average chance of making my education worth the effort, since according to the Department of Labor the worst outcome is for those whose grades are in the bottom quarter.

I might feel like a bit of a white elephant, and why not? The easiest way to advance from bottom-tier working class wages is to learn a skill or a trade; I tried multiple times to do that through both trade schools and on-the-job learning, and every time it ended in frustration. During that whole period I was exposed on a near-constant basis to the idea that liberal arts majors typically hit a dead-end at graduation. But in the case of someone who performs really well, that isn't the case and I have to give myself credit for being well-suited to what I'm doing.

I'm worried that there will be some major catastrophe that sends the world into chaos and I'll be stuck with useless knowledge, but if so, would editing videos or fixing computers or any of the other things I tried to learn really have mattered? In that situation, the ability to think fast and act decisively is all that matters and I've got that. I wouldn't be alive today if I didn't.

On a more positive note...

Threetails

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    Velantian

    It's a shame that anxiety is such a good motivator.

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    kishniev

    Something to think about. Maybe it's just my ignorance, but catastrophes make me not just happy, but euphoric.

    I'll never forget the adrenaline rush in 1999 when US bombs smashed our apartment. I'll never forget the endorphin blow when I went early home from school in 2003 when they assassinated the Prime Minister. Or the shock in 2008 when I survived a car crash.

    Something huge is about to happen are the words which bring me hope, probably because I didn't like the way my life was developing at that time. Maybe you should try to think that way... I'm depressed; it can't get any worse than this, okay? Let something happen, let a UFO crash in my neighborhood, or let CERN explode into a huge crater filled with lava with Jesus ascending from the sky...

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      Threetails

      The magnitude of catastrophe I'm concerned about is the sort that pretty much no one would survive.

      Scenario 1: Accelerated insect die-offs cause a collapse of the global food supply
      Scenario 2: Ocean acidification and pollution cause 90% of fish species to die off, causing toxic algal blooms and seas swarming with jellyfish, but nothing edible.
      Scenario 3: NATO and Russia finally have it out over Crimea. Mutual assured destruction.

      I guarantee these won't be worth the adrenaline rush.

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        kishniev

        Not everyone will die! Only catastrophes where the rich people survive are the ones which are allowed to happen. If ocean acidity or nuclear war had any effect on Rotschield or Savoy dynasties. there would be ecology laws and global warming would be technologically tamed in a matter of years. Nuclear disarmament would be done in two years if any of them feared of the Kremlin or Pentagon decorated crackheads.

        1. Worldwide bee colony collapse. There will be a global crisis for maybe 10 years, then supply alternatives would be developed. World population in the meantime will be decreased by maybe 1 or 2 billion, mostly from undeveloped countries. Africa, Central and South America would be devastated of course. Good part of Asia would become dependent on food imports. Europe and developed parts of North America would see it as a posterity relief. Switzerland wouldn't be even touched by the global famine.

        2. Extreme ocean acidification. See number one. Japan and most of Asia would be doomed, and forced to pay high price for imported mainland food. Gulf Stream would cease or change it's course, but it's just a small climate change which would make wealthy UK citizens to relocate south. Five-star sea resorts will have to buy machines to purify water and reverse the acidification around the guarded tourist areas.

        3. WW3 -- will never happen in a such scale. All rich families and secret societies know that an all-out war would be an end of them too. A nuclear conflict will be, at most, local, without negative global consequences (e.g. Hiroshima and Nagasaki).

        In other words, I think the future of human race isn't a problem... Future of people like us is a more important concern. Salvation of the human race is not our problem, it's the salvation of ourselves as individuals. But for that you have various mechanisms to make one smoothly accept it's death (religions, belief in afterlife, feeling content, being ignorant, etc).

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          Threetails

          I miss the days when nothing stood between me and a belief in nothing after death. I really do hope I'm wrong and this vision of Samsara I've been treated to is just the fantasy of an overwrought imagination.