There’s Something Wrong With the World Today…
What if the world actually ended in 2012? Let’s say the Mayans were right. Be it by meteor, or a pole flip, a simulation crash… whatever. It took us all at once. Lights out. Our entire species gone.
I’ve heard about the brain and the effects of low oxygen levels; I’ve even written a story based on that premise. Misfiring neurons. Time stretches. Logic thrown out the window. It’s an interesting concept to play with in fiction.
So, back to my question…
What if these past thirteen years haven’t been years at all? What if it’s been our final nanosecond stretched to infinity? What if we’re in a shared hallucination that’s only going to get worse?
I’ll admit, there’s a little comfort in this idea. If it’s true, then we’re dead already. None of this matters. We don’t have to care anymore because it’ll eventually end. Nobody needs to take responsibility. We can sit back and wait for the screen to go black.
That’s exactly why it’s appealing. It turns choices into symptoms. It turns consequences into bad luck. It turns accountability into something you can shrug off and blame on “the state of things.”
The problem is, this isn’t some stupid short story. We’re awake. This is real. And we should all be ashamed of ourselves.
Recent events have made it painfully obvious how detached we’ve become from reality. And this isn’t some generational thing, either. Everyone has lost their absolute fucking minds. Young, old, educated… this shit is cultural.
I know accountability is hard. I know standards require effort. I know consequences feel unfair when you’re used to being coddled. But it needs to be said. It’s time to stop rebelling against common sense. It’s time to have a little respect for ourselves and each other. Ignorance begets ignorance, and we’re drowning in the results.
I feel like I shouldn’t need to say this, but it scares me that I’m not so sure anymore. If your idea of going to “war” involves stepping into your kitchen to get kitted out with baking pans, stay the fuck home. You are not brave; you’re unprepared. And your overconfidence is going to get you, and possibly get the person beside you, hurt, too.
To be clear, this isn’t me preaching passivity. Sometimes something needs to be done. Sometimes it takes someone brave enough to fight the battle no one else will. But what we’re living with now isn’t bravery. It’s impulsive ignorance dressed up as righteousness. It’s people throwing matches into gasoline and then acting offended when it explodes in their face.
What’s happening isn’t mysterious. It’s cause and effect. You want to change behavior? Stop arguing. Instead, learn to speak the proper language.
I’ve had this thought in my head for years. I know the logistics would be horrendous, getting everyone not only on board but coordinated, but what if, for one day, everyone stopped spending money?
Go to work, sure. Make your money. Keep the lights on. Keep the hospitals running. Keep the actual essentials moving. But outside of that, no spending. No online orders. No quick coffee. No impulse buys. Just a single day where we collectively refuse to feed the machine.
The point isn’t perfection. The point is to signal that we’re ready to join the big-boy table and have an adult conversation.
We keep trying to fix cultural rot with arguments. With hashtags. With speeches. With performative outrage. Meanwhile, as long as the money keeps moving, who cares?
A one-day spending freeze wouldn’t end capitalism. It wouldn’t solve the world. But it would remind everyone of something we’ve collectively forgotten.
Money talks.
If we want to be heard, we don’t scream louder. We learn to speak the proper language.
Because whatever this is, this constant performance, this endless excuse-making, this addiction to being coddled, it is not working. It’s making people weaker, louder, and more entitled, all at once. Is turning grown adults into toddlers with Wi-Fi.
It’s time to act like adults again. Fuck.
