80 Years of Trying Is Circling Down the Drain

[highplainsdem]

38. A belated happy birthday, MineralMan - and I hope your birthday yesterday had some real joy, that

you celebrated with loved ones, even if you feel tired today.

I'm younger than you, but like many others replying here, there are parallels in what we've experienced.

I hit - thought I'd hit - maximum tiredness myself after years of 24/7 caregiving, and I added stupid feelings of guilt to it beating myself up for not having been able to get my mom physically healthy again, in her 90s, despite her having the family heart problems, and a very rare swallowing disorder, and finally both vascular dementia and Alzheimer's. I remember lots of nights with less than 5 hours' sleep, and a physical therapy aide there after Mom broke a hip telling me I was trying to do the work of 7 or 8 people. I still thought I could, and it was mostly physical exhaustion, though worsened by guilt and self-recrimination. I would've probably ended up sick myself if I hadn't known a lot about diet, exercise, and coping with stress.

Then, after she'd passed and I'd gone through the usual caregiver mourning and self-questioning (which I'm now trying to help a cousin through after my aunt's death), I thought I was ready to pick up some parts of my life that had been set aside because of necessary caregiving.

Only to soon see what damage generative AI could do. Huge threat to so many people. In fact, for a while it seemed much more of a threat than Trump was, because it seemed less likely a couple of years ago that Trump would ever be back in the White House and consolidating power as much as he has. I remember George Soros naming AI and climate change, in that order, as the greatest threats we faced, back in 2023.

I'm not against tech advances. I had a PC and laser printer in the 1980s, first got online then before there was a world wide web, and thought it was wonderful. But I wasn't blind to later problems with the internet and social media, and I realized genAI was the most harmful non-military tech we'd seen, the last thing we needed.

Just as Trump was the last type of politician we needed.

I'm not as physically tired as I was during that time of 24/7 caregiving and minimal sleep. But I am really pissed off that instead of focusing on what I'd prefer to focus on, there are crises that demand attention, and that make it important to try to make others aware of them.

I do know younger generations are aware of those crises, even if our US media might not be making us aware of that. I see news outlets in other countries that put more emphasis on those issues - whether Trump or AI or climate change or the insane dictators and warmongers we hate - than mainstream US media tend to. And that gives me hope, and hope is invaluable. It sustains people, even through long struggles.

On a personal level, it makes me feel less tired.

And I might even find a bit more time to focus on those things I'd prefer to focus all my time and energy on, if there wasn't all the damn news about Trump and AI and psychopathic warmongers.