Maybe the best part of the 90s was that the music of the 80s died. George Michael? Wang Chung? Gag. The 90s were good for many of us, but looking back, I realize the personal prosperity I had was built on neoliberal economics at the expense of millions in other countries. My biggest client was a little piece of Minolta, and I was self-employed, able to make my hours fit around bicycling the rolling countryside of rural upstate NY. I KNEW that I was living the best part of my life.
I look back on that with some guilt. I wasn't nearly as informed then, but I could see the unsustainability of everything. I felt it by my mid-teens.
I realize I'll never have that happiness again, so I try to concentrate on meaning, which is why I turned to writing. Part of that came from wanting to keep the flicker of hope alive we could pull back from collapse, and that I could be part of that. Meaning isn't necessarily joyous, but it's a pretty solid reason to get out of bed every day, and it came with hope. With this election, I fear I have lost that and can only document the terrifying slide until I get a knock on the door.
Back to music. Curt Cobain predicted Trump being president. No wonder the poor guy took his life.
I think happiness is a mind set, and can be separated from one's circumstances.
I say this from various experiences. I have known people who had been through hell, whose life seemed unbearable to me, but they were happy, smiling, joking, planning their future and obviously enjoying every moment of their existence.
On the other hand, I once lived in a tax haven in a beautiful place, and many of the wealthy men that lived there had achieved everything; successful businesses, great riches, all the toys, beautiful wives, kids, exotic holidays.......but were seriously depressed and sometimes suicidal, often alcoholic or into escapist drugs. It seemed to make no sense.
I do prefer the term contentment than happiness, because happiness to me is temporary; a fun evening with a few drinks can make one happy for a while, but contentment seems a longer state of satisfaction and wellbeing.
How to achieve it? The Dalai Lama says to let go of possessions and cravings, but i can't see myself doing that - not least because I enjoy my boys toys too much! But I do think you can manage how important things are to you. Not just ownership of possessions, like houses and cars, but also work and careers and even people.
I see it like this; when I choose to make something or someone important to me, I give that possession or that person a gift of my caring, or affection, or love, or trust. I make it or them important to me. But here is the thing - it doesn't have to be forever. I always have the right to take it back, or change the rules, or make it conditional - they are my feelings and so are mine to control.
So if I feel someone I trusted or loved has let me down, I can recognise that it was my error to misjudge them and going forward I can modify how much I can depend on them, or choose not to depend on them at all. It was my responsibility for misjudging them in the first place, and it is my ability to change the rules of our future relationship.
Now I am no longer a victim, buffeted and threatened by a world full of risks, but someone in charge of those risks and fully responsible for my judgements and decisions.
How does this relate to the current situation?
To me, Trump is the products of decades of decisions and errors that Americans have allowed to happen, and not corrected when they were able, right back to the Constitution. Even in my lifetime and yours, the writing has been on the wall for anyone to read; greed as the measure of success, treating Blacks and Hispanics as second class citizens, monetising everything and, as I have said many times, running the country for the corporations instead or managing the corporations for society.
So if Trump, or someone like him, was inevitable, then any reasonably intelligent person should have assumed that it would happen one day and prepared for it. Especially after trump having won before!
Right now, many people on Substack seem to assume there are things that can be done to make America like it used to be, and they are unhappy because that seems difficult. It is, of course, impossible for too many reasons to list, and if your happiness depends on it, then you will be unhappy for the rest of your existence.
Alternatively, you can say, "l was happy to have experienced that time when America seemed like that, but that America has now gone, and I need to find somewhere where I can let myself be happy". In short, you can choose to take away the importance of the current situation, and still retain the memory of the past contentment.
You can also choose to take away your commitment to your concept of America, not because you are abandoning America in its time of need, but because America just abandoned you when a majority of Americans preferred Trump. The future America will not only be a place that you won't like, it will be a place that won't like you!
So, if the situation is making you unhappy, decide to be happy and contented despite the circumstances, and choose to reduce your previous commitments to the things you once considered important that are now pulling you down. It really is tour choice.
I’m pretty sure that the unhappy rich people have discovered that materialism doesn’t lead to happiness. The entire nation has been bamboozled into thinking it does. What a self goal.
You're right. But if a society can convince enough people to try to become happy by becoming rich, The American Dream, then it increases taxes, and that makes society richer, or so the theory goes. Does that make those people happy? In purist terms it seems yes, up to a point of affording to do what you want, and paying all the bills, and feeling secure.
But in many surveys in many countries, the thing that makes ordinary people happiest is earning just a bit more than all their neighbours, friends and colleagues! 😬
there are good delineations here - but to me it seems we are barred from the lives of unmediated enjoyment not by a temporal, historical, or generational gap, but by worsening concrete material conditions.
same as it always was. but worse, before it gets worse.
Great piece, Sarah. I’d do anything to go back to the 90s and a time when one just took the presence of a future as a given.
Now, each day, I remind myself that “today is the best it’s ever going to be”. And in 5 years time, I may well wish I could return back to this moment, despite how grief and dread-filled it is.
I hear you and a part of me agrees, although the nineties were not a happy time for me. I was already deep in the environment movement and acutely conscious of how bad things were elsewhere in the world.
But, what was wonderful, in retrospect, was that the pace of life was slower. We had quiet moments to contemplate. There was space for mental and emotional peace. We have none of that now.
From my earliest memories I remember a feeling of dread and alienation. I've since discovered that the world was created by a demented demiurge and it's all a bit twisted 😂
maybe you could call the 90s peak civilization, but peak humanity feels a bit like it not only ignores the value of much of other nonWestern, noncivilized human peoples' way of living, but is blind to so much common experience, knowledge and social structure that western culture was already losing on a mass scale - things that I think were actually pretty important to humanity (cooking skills, plant cultivation, close-knit multigenerational communities, contact with nature, sense of rootedness, to name a few.)
but yeah in short I agree with the rest, sh*t sucks now lmao
Maybe the best part of the 90s was that the music of the 80s died. George Michael? Wang Chung? Gag. The 90s were good for many of us, but looking back, I realize the personal prosperity I had was built on neoliberal economics at the expense of millions in other countries. My biggest client was a little piece of Minolta, and I was self-employed, able to make my hours fit around bicycling the rolling countryside of rural upstate NY. I KNEW that I was living the best part of my life.
I look back on that with some guilt. I wasn't nearly as informed then, but I could see the unsustainability of everything. I felt it by my mid-teens.
I realize I'll never have that happiness again, so I try to concentrate on meaning, which is why I turned to writing. Part of that came from wanting to keep the flicker of hope alive we could pull back from collapse, and that I could be part of that. Meaning isn't necessarily joyous, but it's a pretty solid reason to get out of bed every day, and it came with hope. With this election, I fear I have lost that and can only document the terrifying slide until I get a knock on the door.
Back to music. Curt Cobain predicted Trump being president. No wonder the poor guy took his life.
I think happiness is a mind set, and can be separated from one's circumstances.
I say this from various experiences. I have known people who had been through hell, whose life seemed unbearable to me, but they were happy, smiling, joking, planning their future and obviously enjoying every moment of their existence.
On the other hand, I once lived in a tax haven in a beautiful place, and many of the wealthy men that lived there had achieved everything; successful businesses, great riches, all the toys, beautiful wives, kids, exotic holidays.......but were seriously depressed and sometimes suicidal, often alcoholic or into escapist drugs. It seemed to make no sense.
I do prefer the term contentment than happiness, because happiness to me is temporary; a fun evening with a few drinks can make one happy for a while, but contentment seems a longer state of satisfaction and wellbeing.
How to achieve it? The Dalai Lama says to let go of possessions and cravings, but i can't see myself doing that - not least because I enjoy my boys toys too much! But I do think you can manage how important things are to you. Not just ownership of possessions, like houses and cars, but also work and careers and even people.
I see it like this; when I choose to make something or someone important to me, I give that possession or that person a gift of my caring, or affection, or love, or trust. I make it or them important to me. But here is the thing - it doesn't have to be forever. I always have the right to take it back, or change the rules, or make it conditional - they are my feelings and so are mine to control.
So if I feel someone I trusted or loved has let me down, I can recognise that it was my error to misjudge them and going forward I can modify how much I can depend on them, or choose not to depend on them at all. It was my responsibility for misjudging them in the first place, and it is my ability to change the rules of our future relationship.
Now I am no longer a victim, buffeted and threatened by a world full of risks, but someone in charge of those risks and fully responsible for my judgements and decisions.
How does this relate to the current situation?
To me, Trump is the products of decades of decisions and errors that Americans have allowed to happen, and not corrected when they were able, right back to the Constitution. Even in my lifetime and yours, the writing has been on the wall for anyone to read; greed as the measure of success, treating Blacks and Hispanics as second class citizens, monetising everything and, as I have said many times, running the country for the corporations instead or managing the corporations for society.
So if Trump, or someone like him, was inevitable, then any reasonably intelligent person should have assumed that it would happen one day and prepared for it. Especially after trump having won before!
Right now, many people on Substack seem to assume there are things that can be done to make America like it used to be, and they are unhappy because that seems difficult. It is, of course, impossible for too many reasons to list, and if your happiness depends on it, then you will be unhappy for the rest of your existence.
Alternatively, you can say, "l was happy to have experienced that time when America seemed like that, but that America has now gone, and I need to find somewhere where I can let myself be happy". In short, you can choose to take away the importance of the current situation, and still retain the memory of the past contentment.
You can also choose to take away your commitment to your concept of America, not because you are abandoning America in its time of need, but because America just abandoned you when a majority of Americans preferred Trump. The future America will not only be a place that you won't like, it will be a place that won't like you!
So, if the situation is making you unhappy, decide to be happy and contented despite the circumstances, and choose to reduce your previous commitments to the things you once considered important that are now pulling you down. It really is tour choice.
Sorry that turned out to be so long!
Some great advice there.
Thanks!
I’m pretty sure that the unhappy rich people have discovered that materialism doesn’t lead to happiness. The entire nation has been bamboozled into thinking it does. What a self goal.
You're right. But if a society can convince enough people to try to become happy by becoming rich, The American Dream, then it increases taxes, and that makes society richer, or so the theory goes. Does that make those people happy? In purist terms it seems yes, up to a point of affording to do what you want, and paying all the bills, and feeling secure.
But in many surveys in many countries, the thing that makes ordinary people happiest is earning just a bit more than all their neighbours, friends and colleagues! 😬
there are good delineations here - but to me it seems we are barred from the lives of unmediated enjoyment not by a temporal, historical, or generational gap, but by worsening concrete material conditions.
same as it always was. but worse, before it gets worse.
Great piece, Sarah. I’d do anything to go back to the 90s and a time when one just took the presence of a future as a given.
Now, each day, I remind myself that “today is the best it’s ever going to be”. And in 5 years time, I may well wish I could return back to this moment, despite how grief and dread-filled it is.
Thank you
I hear you and a part of me agrees, although the nineties were not a happy time for me. I was already deep in the environment movement and acutely conscious of how bad things were elsewhere in the world.
But, what was wonderful, in retrospect, was that the pace of life was slower. We had quiet moments to contemplate. There was space for mental and emotional peace. We have none of that now.
Ignorence is bliss. I’m letting my teen enjoy it best she can. It will never be this good again (which is sad, because it’s shit compared to the 90s).
From my earliest memories I remember a feeling of dread and alienation. I've since discovered that the world was created by a demented demiurge and it's all a bit twisted 😂
maybe you could call the 90s peak civilization, but peak humanity feels a bit like it not only ignores the value of much of other nonWestern, noncivilized human peoples' way of living, but is blind to so much common experience, knowledge and social structure that western culture was already losing on a mass scale - things that I think were actually pretty important to humanity (cooking skills, plant cultivation, close-knit multigenerational communities, contact with nature, sense of rootedness, to name a few.)
but yeah in short I agree with the rest, sh*t sucks now lmao
God Sarah You Ask really tough questions. It'll take me a while to answer this one. Hopefully I can before the entire planet collapses.