Asklemmy

It's indeed very difficult and my take is that the system wants us like this. To be depressed, full of fear and hopeless. Mainly of course through media.

What I considered one solution to fight back this is to discuss current events, solutions etc with a group of similar minded people. I don't mean join a cult etc. No far from it. But finding people with same concerns by openly discussing them will bond them into bigger groups and this helps a lot. Gives a sense of fulfilment and hope.

No fear. Act.

That's the neat part, you don't.

Get involved in direct action in your community. Linking up with an org or group that does real community service and solidarity can help prevent you from feeling helpless and falling into that depressive spiral.

Help at a soup kitchen, provide homeless care kits, work a food/clothing drive, work with a crew to clean up gang tags from walls, pick up litter, build bird boxes, etc.

Seeing your community get a little better can do a lot for your mental health.

Remember that dispite the horrors of our species, we have accomplished some pretty incredible things. Just 200 years ago, we were still putting leaches on people and not washing our hands before performing medical procedures.

Now, we use microscopic lasers to correct blindness, cure certain types or deafness by implanting magnets into skulls, we can deliver and grow infants that are born several months too early to full term with minimal complications, and we can treat scores of diseases that would have been a death sentence just 200 years ago.

The Capitalist scum would have you believe that nobody would have done those things unless they made money doing it, but that's a lie and projection. They wouldn't have done that if it didn't make them money, because they are evil and without empathy.

But they don't represent the human spirit, what we are truly capable of when we work together for the common good.

The greatest accomplishments of our species aren't when we compete and fight each other. The greatest accomplishments happen when we cooperate with each other. Don't let the rich and powerful convince you otherwise.

I stopped using social media so much, the internet is moved by clicks and panic content gets them, but I find it overwhelming.

Don't fall into doomerism - news companies are companies, and negativity gets people on their platforms for much longer than positivity, it's easy to get addicted to it. Set time limits or limit the amount of news you consume per day/per week.

Recognize that caring about something requires mental energy - if you had 1 friend who asks you to care about their hobby or learn a bit more, then you might agree, but if you have 20 friends with different hobbies asking the same thing, then there's no way you can care about all of them. Similar thing applies to the news, recognize that you can't care about everything and try learning how to stay informed without giving up lots of mental energy stressing about things you can't really influence.

It's admirable wanting to keep up with the news, but it also can be a bit of a trap and does require a degree of skill to not fall into what you describe in your post.

We are each just one person. We can't save the world, and it would be unreasonable to carry that burden.

But we each can save a small piece of it. A kind word here, a forgiving of slights there, and work in some patience & understanding for others.

Little things can make waves. And if Six Degrees of Separation remains true, your little deeds affect more people than you realize.

I literally don't understand people having kids in this "climate". That's how cynical and hopeless I feel about humanity's future.

I wouldn't want to inflict that... The heat, the natural disasters, the risk of nuclear wars. The genocides considering multiple were or are active at any point (Palestine, Syria...). The fall of journalism...

Many things I discuss with my friends but nobody could ever dream to fix. So all this shit stays with you. And seeing how our politics are reacting to climate change, this is lost. Because everything else is pointless if you don't have a place to live.

Communism.

I have a personal petty war against the corposlop extortions in my life, I know it won't stop them or bring about a revolution or smth, but at least I can be an example to others that they need us more than we need them and it makes me at least feel that I have some control, some things that I can take back from being corrupted.

So far I have:

• Stopped buying all fast fashion and buy far fewer clothes in general mostly off Etsy back in the day or indie online retailers
• Cancelled my subscription to Netflix for me and my gf, replaced with Jellyfin
• Cancelled Amazon Prime and stopped shopping at Amazon altogether alongside getting my friends off Wish, Temu etc.
• Stopped using all food delivery and ride-sharing apps
• Stopped eating fast food and at big chains
• Moved most my grocery shopping to Co-Op
• Eliminated all corporate and/or algorithm driven social media from my life (Insta, FB, Reddit, Discord, LinkedIn, YT (only via self-hosted proxies/ublock/sponsorblock/dearrow).
• Stopped using corpo LLMs, using only my homebrew refine of Mistral 7B sometimes
• Stopped using Chrome, cancelled Google one and my sub to GDrive
• Almost stopped using Windows
• Replaced almost all daily use software with FOSS alternatives
• Almost entirely stopped buying any tech that isn't used and/or refurbished and/or old/junkyard material

Next steps are:

• Replace ISP router with junkyard rescue gear with FOSS software, mite b getting some from work soon
• Cancel Spotify as my last remaining subscription service (I have personal playlists I need to backup)
• Get rid of Google accs and host my own email
• Ascend past smartphones (already use only old flagships for less than a hundred bucks)

I feel like it's still all just in the consumption framework and highly individualistic, but it helps me cope, it's an outlet for anger that has bettered me as a person in every way imaginable.

Join a political party that aligns with the change you want to see. Also belonging to a few leftist orgs to effect your local city.

If your a right winger then sorry its a case of living with that low mood.

The cure for grief is action. Go to a DSA meeting, join a mutual aid society, volunteer at a community garden. Help out at a food pantry. Put the values you believe in back into the world.

Just go to a poor country like Peru. You will start to appreciate what you have.

Heavily filter what you consume. Following all news is not the morally correct thing to do, and you can cut back on it.

I'm fighting against this by staying off all social media other than Lemmy. All my news comes from a small number of curated sources, and only in RSS feeds (so I get them in time order rather than bullshit news site headlines prioritisation). I use a lot of keyword filters on Lemmy and in my RSS news (Covid, Trump, Biden, most American news, anything that is meaningless to me is blocked before it can show up on my screen).

TLDR news is a particularly good YouTube channel. They have really well presented news and pick out a few important events to report on. I find that's more than enough for me for news consumption.

The neat part is, you don't.

Act to change it and be at peace mentally knowing that you have dedicated your life to the struggle and you have done all you can.

Watch the telly. Television tends to keep people somewhat informed but apathetic.

If they'd make people actually feel the horrors of the world, then people would stop watching. They know this so what they do is deliver it all in a way that promotes apathy. They do show you things but structure it so that the implicit message is: don't worry, do watch but whatever you do, don't worry, it's all fine, business as usual. "New report comes out, humanity is destroying the planet faster than ever before, biodiversity is plumetting [...] (jingle) there's a genocide going on and we are supporting it [...] (jingle) in other news: a baby panda was born at this zoo. [..] (jingle) now for the weather. . [..] (jingle) thank you for watching, see you tomorrow."

What you'll find is that despite you being somewhat aware of current events, most of the time it all feels like an abstract thing that doesn't really worry you. Seldom does anything you see on the telly push you to do anything. "Some important news just reached me through the telly, that means that I will now do so and so...", yeah right. I do nothing, maybe I walk to the fridge to get a soda, since ads do have calls to action. The news has a subliminal call to apathy. So I sit back down and continue to watch my entertainment.

I've blocked as much news out of my life as I can manage with the exception of some financial news. That includes blocking all the news communities on Lemmy. Things still slip through, but I also push myself to just ignore the bits that I still see and move on with my life. I'm much happier as a result. In terms of being aware of big news, if its a big enough deal, the fine folks here at Lemmy will create memes to let me know.

You know you're going to die right ? How do you deal with that ? Philosophically, Stoicism has some of what I need for coping.

I'd also suggest that journalism is mostly interlectual trash that clutters your mind. Really important events will find their way to you.

An example, I'm not an American (i did live there back in the mid 1990s, before I relaised it wasn't for me) and I will likely Vote Green until I die. I'd prefer a livable biospbere and little better treament of minorities. Others prefer the opposite but their entreaties to get me to think their way won't work so why would I bother listening?

Journalism isnt really about reporting "news" but selling advertising.

Ignorance is bliss - dogs are the happiest people I know. We should all strive to be more like dogs.

It's tough. Just keeping up with "trying" to be aware is a full-time stressful job (there's literally only so much time in a day to absorb information, some have less/more). That would be hard even if everything was awesome news all the time in a world so connected.

It helps to realize that it's always been this way, the world is a busy busy place. Everything going on, all the time, never stopping. It doesn't pause, you sleep and the world continues on without you. It's overwhelming, but kinda cool at the same time.

So for me, I take a step back with "mindfulness". It's just a word, but what you're going for is a feeling. For instance, if you've been on here a long time, turn off your screen for a minute and look at your surroundings. Don't let your mind wander back to the screen. Literally give your mind a second to realize you are just existing in a small space. Look at your wall and pick out a detail you haven't seen before, or a tree (anything to let your mind think about something else).

Take some deep breaths or stretch or feel your toes, there's lots of different techniques people use. But, you're going for the disconnected feeling. If you're breathing and still thinking about what's online you gotta refocus to your immediate area. That argument or event is not in your vicinity. You are not helping by stressing out over it. Don't be a fire-fighter who's in a firehouse worried about all the houses catching on fire.

You can compensate your mind's news addiction, by realizing you are better prepared to interact and absorb information online if you're more stable. At some point your cognitive mind is tapped out but you're still scrolling from habit, or you're less likely to get your point across with proper communication if you're not in your best mindset.

By just giving your mind a little room to breathe you'll start figuring out what you want to do with that time. Local organization, hobbies, chores, your mind will try to fill that void with something and you'll be able to hopefully choose something that helps your current overwhelming feeling. Fire-fighters check equipment, play games, shoot the shit, etc. They're still extremely helpful when the time comes.

From recent events I believe online discourse is an important part of society interaction. Look at the media attention over the CEO, instead of just demonizing him, they had to spend time trying to fight all the online support and looked like fools during it.

One person cannot fix every problem in the world. But you can do your part.