The death of hope is a balm
Dec. 17th, 2019 09:02 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
After three years of increasing stress watching Brexit approach, be deflected, go up against numerous crunch votes, and not quite make it through, the knowledge that it's happening has been actually very helpful for my mental health.
Now, whenever I see an item about the latest stupidity I take in the headline, snort about what idiots they are, and move on. It feels very much Not My Problem.
I mean, it will be. It will be everyone's. But now it's an approaching storm that I can get on with battening down the hatches for. It is an inevitable part of the future, not something I should be trying to stop.
In some ways it feels the same as the ending of some of my relationships - endless stressing about how to fix things (and whether they can be fixed) is now over and the heartbreak is nowhere near as bad as the stress was.
I realise that my ability to put in place survival mechanisms is a sign of privilege. The people who will be hit worst by this are the poorest and most precarious. I'll do what I can to help people when it comes clear what that help looks like. But at the moment I mostly just feel the relief of knowing the fight is over and we lost.
Now, whenever I see an item about the latest stupidity I take in the headline, snort about what idiots they are, and move on. It feels very much Not My Problem.
I mean, it will be. It will be everyone's. But now it's an approaching storm that I can get on with battening down the hatches for. It is an inevitable part of the future, not something I should be trying to stop.
In some ways it feels the same as the ending of some of my relationships - endless stressing about how to fix things (and whether they can be fixed) is now over and the heartbreak is nowhere near as bad as the stress was.
I realise that my ability to put in place survival mechanisms is a sign of privilege. The people who will be hit worst by this are the poorest and most precarious. I'll do what I can to help people when it comes clear what that help looks like. But at the moment I mostly just feel the relief of knowing the fight is over and we lost.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 09:10 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 10:00 am (UTC)(they aren’t, of course. That’s the whole point of all of this)
no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 10:05 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 10:12 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 10:35 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 10:36 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 12:53 pm (UTC)It may have to do with being working class in origin and growing up in a council prefab in the Medway towns (which I know you know). What good old days?
no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 10:19 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 11:02 am (UTC)Survival mechanisms?
no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 11:04 am (UTC)I am staying in Germany, I don't care what. I would rather not change nationality, but if I have to, I will (but I can't for a couple of years yet in any case). I am glad that Germany has a shortage of skilled software developers, and will be almost certainly likely to make it easy for me to say (and keep paying those nice juicy taxes). Not all will be so lucky. I have my fingers crossed.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 04:04 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 01:41 pm (UTC)Brexit is part of the global right wing/nationalist resurgence. A core chunk of their platform (if you can call it that) is closing down borders and truncating international supply chains. And we have a background of runaway climate change. There's a drumbeat of anti-immigrant rhetoric everywhere, and it's only going to get worse: this is the background to Brexit.
A lock-down on immigration in a time of climate change is tantamount to genocide. Not by death camp, but by starvation/heatstroke, forcing people to try to survive in climactic conditions that are unsurvivable.
This isn't a world I can accept.
no subject
Date: 2019-12-17 10:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-18 12:45 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2019-12-19 12:46 pm (UTC)Currently in the English-speaking nations the white supremacists still pay lip service to disbelief in anthropogenic climate change. I expect that to flip within the next 1-5 years, and go from denial ("there's no problem") to retribution ("it's the mud people's fault for breeding and consuming all the resources — if people are going to die, we need to make sure it's them who do the dying, and not us"). At which point, the next version of Trump or Johnson will go full-bore for "let them die, that leaves more resources for us".
no subject
Date: 2019-12-18 01:31 pm (UTC)i'm not sure i'm capable of accepting there are millions of people *that* stupid just indistinguishably walking around like they're normal.