>>11209219The problem runs deep, and the challenge is on you to try to muddle through and hope for the best. This isn't a fucking bromide pitch, because I'm doing a terrible job of it too, but I'm trying to haul myself forward somehow, even if there's nothing to indicate that forward as defined by telos exists. Your parents wanted to do right by you. Experts told their parents education was the way, and to an extent, that seemed correct. Going to school led to better outcomes than not usually, although it turns out that was due to a unique moment in time brought about by adopting Nazi economic processes under Eisenhower. Unprecedented trough access and satiety for the maximum number of piggies. Then we learned about the long game. Public school was always envisioned as an indoctrination tool, but the average schlub doesn't care about abstract ideals, so it was enough to make it a holding pen that ingrained destructive habits in the masses and a deep contempt for the idle piggies in the aspirational student. By the time we got out into the world, there was more corn than ever, but the trough was being kept half full. We had to start fighting for our place, and obviously, when it's life or tacit death, no-one fights fair. So relationships are shallow and predatory. They've been this way for most of history, that's why you read about groups of like-minded people going off to try to build something better. Trouble is, we can't do the same. Digital's made it possible to just always follow everyone everywhere, all the time. And if you're an asshole on top of the heap, #1, do you want that even potentially threatened, and #2, why not just fuck their shit up for kicks? Isn't that part of being an asshole? Now we have self-help books, telling you why you're the problem and the solution, and giving you plenty of misanthropic outs. Toxic people holding you down. People aren't toxic. People have problems.
