Despite being a part of the economy of the United States of America, both as a person producing value/wealth for others like a good capitalist cog and as someone whose retirement is largely dependent on it’s health due to the broken way that retirement is set up in the US, I feel a sense of satisfaction every time the stock market loses value. I understand this is the perversity within me making itself known–it is my one source of schadenfreude even though it is far from harmless–to a life mostly spent setting it aside in order to do what I know to be right (for example, I did actually vote in the latest election in Wisconsin despite wanting nothing more than to not vote at all because I was being harassed and hangued at all hours of the day, by phone and mail, about note just voting but how just ANYONE could look up whether or not I voted in any particular election by those messages that always feel more threatening than motivational). I understand that and do not set it aside because, for all the harm it does, it has a greater impact on those so wealthy that their “worth” is tied up in the bullshit confluence of imagined value known as the stock market. It is the only time I get to look at the world and know that while the actual impact on my life is greater than it will ever be on a billionaire’s, at least my changes are measured in four or five digits while a billionaire’s changes are measured in at least double that many digits. Cold comfort, to be sure, given that I’m pretty sure I’m never going to be able to actually retire in the modern sense of the word, but it’s the only comfort I’ve got as my country and economy shake a rattle at a scale beyond my ability to influence.

Two days, now, I’ve watched the stock market fall and I’m sure it’s only going to get worse. I mean, I’m sure some people are going to find a way to make a ton of money, still, since there’s no event the wealthy can’t find a way to turn to their advantage, and I wouldn’t be surprised to learn that all of this is some kind of scheme by the current ruling class to drop stock value, by a bunch of it, and then bounce it back up in order to inflate their net worth. That’s how most cryptocurrencies work, anyway, and those rich fucks are all over those things, so I would not be surprised if they decided to cut out the middlemen now that they know nothing they do is ever going to have lasting or meaningful consequences for them. I mean, that’s kind of where we’re at these days. The economy is being flushed down the drain by the dumbass in charge because he’s too stupid and too evil to care about the impacts of what he does, every single thing we thought was true about the US is being tossed in the trash as people are kidnapped and sold into slavery in foreign countries, as concentration camps make their return in the US (or, well, outside the US, but they’re being filled by the US), and as the rule of law is picked apart, piece by piece, because the people in charge of doing anything about have decided that they’re better served by campaigning on doing something about in the next election cycle.

It is difficult not to feel jaded and bitter. How am I supposed to have hope for the future when the leaders we picked for the present (for lack of better options, in almost every case, because almost all our better options were chased off the campaign trail by the establishment) have decided that there is to be no hope for today so they can make it a pillar of their campaigns next year? It’s not like it’s a limited resource. There could be hope now and probably even more in the future if they cultivated it now. Instead, we’ll see people go with the flow so they can continue to pretend that life hasn’t changed, we’ll see protests escalate as disatisfaction rises, and then it will burn out because there is no one in place to direct that energy anywhere productive. Which isn’t to say nothing will happen. People are starting to do the work. People are recognizing the failures of their leaders and are starting to build what they can from the ground up, but it will be slow and there is still so much that can go worse as we’re only two and a half months into the ninety-six allotted by this latest presidential election. I don’t know if it will ever be enough. I don’t know what tomorrow will hold. At this point, I feel like all I can do is hope that the people at the top are as miserable as the rest of us from what remains of the middle on downward.

It isn’t true, but it’s all I’ve really got as I watch things unfold around me that could easily wreck my life but that I have no ability to directly influence. It’s so stressful. I wish it was easier, I wish that I could find a way to escape this stuff even for just a day, but it’s everywhere. I’m not sure how I could completely cut myself off from it without somehow isolating myself in a way that removes all connection to the outside world. Which would be even more intolerable and isolating given that those connections are all I’ve got these days–my last remaining joy. Which means I’d just rolling with the hits as they happen, trying to stay ready to act whenever something comes up that I can actually impact, and reminding the people I care about that I’ll be there for them when they need it. I genuinely wish I had someone (or multiple people, but that feels greedy) that spent as much time reassuring me that they’d be there for me as I spend reassuring even one of the people that I care about that I’ve got their back. I don’t exactly feel unsupported, since I know several people who’d do whatever I needed them to do without a question if I told them I needed their help, but I’ll admit that I could use some reassurance all the same. Knowing and feeling are entirely different things, after all, and watching the world shudder and shake apart above me makes my predominant feelings anxiety and isolation.