Katrina Garsten

Everything is exhausting and infuriating. Last year at this time I was doing 100-150 mile weekend bike rides. Now it's a struggle to find the mental energy to do a 25 mile ride. I've been thinking about this a lot because, like I said, I haven't really felt this way before.

I think at the root of it all is good old-fashioned Weltschmerz, another great compound German noun. It literally means, "world pain", but more poetically, "a mood of weariness or sadness about life arising from the acute awareness of evil and suffering".

For most of my adult life, I've thought that human beings are generally selfish, awful, miserable creatures, but 2020 is really pushing that to the forefront of my mind at all hours. I certainly have never felt as alienated from and repulsed by American social values as I do now.

And that's really saying something, because I generally feel alienated from American social values. I think the difference now is that for the first time in my charmed life, I can't escape the influence of those values. They are physically affecting everything around me.

Even if I'm not doomscrolling, the impact of those values is everywhere in my community. I can't ride a bike away from them, I can't drive away from them, and I can't even fly away from them. My previous ability to do so is probably what's kept my head above water until now.

And because I'm deeply cynical about American politics (I think it's probably more fair to say that I have outright thorough contempt for all American political institutions), I have zero hope about things getting better through our institutions.

In fact, I think those institutions will steamroll and destroy the extraordinary people who are tirelessly giving all of their energy to improve things. Because that's what they've done before. And because we can see it happening again, day by day.

I've talked to friends about this, generally, specifically, and they've said, "Yeah, we all feel like this." IDK if I'm depressed. I just know I feel awful every day and like I'm just waiting for earth to fill up around me until I'm completely entombed and suffocate to death.