Perusing Twitter or X (which I may henceforth call “TwiX”) often leaves me feeling panic at the state of our world and the hopelessness of recovering humanity’s footing. No doubt, this is at least partially the way it feels to have your attention manipulated, but stepping back, even that reality is just another contributor to our worrying state of affairs.

One way I see people responding (particularly the profiteers) is to assume the world always feels like it’s full of danger and risk, so the best response is to ignore all that and go about building your life and career, leveraging the reality of the moment toward those ends.  After all, humanity has gone on, generally progressing, despite the ups and downs, and as the large timescale has life improving, some people suffer relatively little during the smaller-scale changes.  It would be better to focus on being one of them, while waiting for the rising tide to lift all our boats, than to live with anxiety and missed opportunities worrying about things one person can hardly change.

In this frame, neither Harris nor Trump will destroy it all. Life will go on, so concentrate on what you can control.

On the other hand, most of our advancement has been relatively recent, and there was no reason it had to take as long as it did.  Electricity, for example, didn’t change.  Humans’ choices about how to perceive the world and organize themselves were the primary catalyst for the prosperity we’ve enjoyed, and we can go in the other direction, too.

Of course, my tendency toward these concerns is why I’ve made one of my daily reminders to “remember what world you live in.”  Ultimately, it all pales in comparison with eternity with God.  But I can’t help but conclude it has been preferable to be grappling with others’ personal demons on an individual scale than seeing those demons coalesce into an existential threat.