Why Collapse is Leaving Americans in Shock
Why We Feel So Fatigued, Depleted, and Exhausted
Have you ever been in a car crash? Do you know that weird, numb, nauseous, out-of-body feeling that hits, after the adrenaline fades?
You’re in shock.
Now imagine that you were in a car crash every day. How would you feel, after a month?
Now consider the fact that we describe the world as a car crash, every day these days — are you in a situation something a little bit like that?
Now consider how you felt after that car crash, and how you feel these days, when you read the news, when you try to sleep, when you wake up. Aren’t they a little similar? Isn’t that weird, funny, strange — and gruesome?
There’s a line I’ve always loved from Office Space. “Every day,” the main character says, talking about his working life, “has been worse than the one before it.” Does that sum up American collapse so far? Every day — weirder, more numbing, more adrenalizing, more panic-inducing, than the one before it? Maybe even something like living through a car crash — every day?
If I had to try to pin down the mood of the nation — maybe the world, at this juncture — I’d put it like this. A kind of weary exhaustion. A sense of grim fatigue. Everyone just feels…