• ghosts [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago

    I’m literally not saving up fun bucks because when I get to retirement age, I’m going to be either fighting in the water wars or dead.

    In other words, I “retired” like 3 years ago and I only work part time to get by. Lots of time for friends and family and fun.

  • BirdBrained [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
    2·
    2 years ago
    Suicide mention

    Seeing shit like this makes me want to kill myself. What’s the point if we’re all going to be dead in like a decade

    I’m going to college for environmental sciences and everyday it feels more and more pointless. I’m pouring my limited time alive into trying to help fix something that is broken beyond repair, hell even if I graduated 20 years earlier it’s not like one person could have done anything

    • Bnova [he/him]@hexbear.netEnglish
      2·
      2 years ago

      I work in ecology, and yeah it’s depressing. There’s a really obvious solution to climate change but no one in leadership in the West is willing to say it and this will make your job feel pointless and it isn’t. You can still make a difference in people’s lives through other means. You’re not going to fix climate change, but you can still get meaning out of the relationships you form and things you accomplish professionally. I work in a niche field of pollination ecology and my research more than likely will not “matter” but I’ve still setup urban public gardens, consulted with habitat enhancements for non-profits and local governments, and educated a ton of people through lecturing, mentoring, and teaching -and while that stuff isn’t going to stop climate change it still matters because it matters to me and I think it’s a good use of my time. And if that isn’t enough remember that people love and care about you.

    • zifnab25 [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      1·
      2 years ago

      There’s no rush.

      And, not to get too esoteric but… its not like you’re going anywhere after you’re dead. You’re still in the world and of the world. As a human living in this moment, you have as much agency as anything has ever had over its environment. As an expert in environmental sciences, even more so.

      I’m pouring my limited time alive into trying to help fix something that is broken beyond repair

      This is fucking miserable on a global scale, but it isn’t the end. No more than the catastrophes of war and plague and famine were the end going back millennia. In the same way that some British dorks fucking around doing geographic surveys in Saudi Arabia a century ago unlocked a thing they would never live long enough to comprehend, you’re participating in a project you won’t live to see the end of. But you’re in it and what you’re doing will echo through time in the same way that the actions of your predecessors did.

      Leave now and all you’re doing is surrendering agency to the survivors. To paraphrase Patton, don’t die for your beliefs. Let the other dipshits die for theirs.