Existential Crisis Management

I read once that despair is intellectually dishonest, because no one can truly predict the future and therefore there is always a reason for hope. As bad as things look, as bleak as the future may seem, as long as we keep working at finding solutions to our problems there remains the possibility that things will get better. All my adult life I've tried to keep that philosophy in mind, and generally it's held up.

But man, lately the world seems REALLY determined to beat that out of me.

Let's start with the positive side of the ledger: my extended family are all mostly healthy. My wife and I have solid, stable jobs. We have a home, reliable cars, and plenty of creature comforts. I know how much better our lives are than billions of other people on the planet, believe me.

And yet... Jerry Sandusky and the cover-up at Penn State. Shootings at movie theaters. Mitt Romney, John Boehner, and the entire Republican party. Hell, the Tea Party. The economy. Giant, multinational corporations treated as "people" by the legal system. Antonin Scalia. Friends who tell me, "I just don't think Obama has made things better." Turning 40 with a job that has no career path. Crushing consumer debt. Hydraulic fracturing. The income gap. Chik-fil-a. Voter ID laws.

Yeah. Tough to hang on to the possibility of things getting better right about now. Tough to reconcile a feeling that people are inherently good and that history is full of instances where we pulled together to make a difference with a belief that humans have also built self-sustaining systems whose complexity and purpose are beyond the understanding of most of those same humans. Tough to look at things and not see a society in decline, a country whose best days are behind it, where the inevitable outcome is a ridiculously wealthy superclass and an overwhelming majority of the population eking out a miserable existence, squabbling among themselves over tribal conflicts.

So, yes, I'm having an existential crisis.

But Joyce and David didn't raise no dummy, so here's the payoff to all the whining above: I'm going to apply a little Norwegian philosophy to this mess. Step one: stop dwelling on all that crap. Unless it's a problem whose solution is within my reach, I'm not going to waste my time thinking about it. Of course, figuring out the extent of my reach is a tricky proposition, so we'll see how that goes. Step two: find a bit of stability in two anchors: family, and the rule of law. Step three: a healthy amount of distraction (hello, video games!).

And finally, the key to everything: I'm going to keep trying to be a better man. Honesty, respect, compassion, and humor will be my four horsemen of the anti-apocalypse. Basically, if I can be the kind of man my father has been, I'll feel successful. And if I can teach my daughter that the only sane response to a harsh, uncaring, and unfair world is to fight back with everything you've got... well, then I'll be a happy old man.

I still want to punch Scalia in the nuts, though.