Midday beat to let nihilism have its moment.
There was an era when people had midlife crises, but the age of hitting traditional markers (coming of age, job, marriage, house, kids), then running out steam mid-race is kind of outmoded now.
What I see instead isn't individual decline; it's a larger lost belief in the myths that bind us as a society.
Rough stuff!
But where the social contract has been undone, it can be remade. Has to be.
So we let the nihilism move through us, and begin again.
I too am ready to live in a cabin in the woods. I will be on my porch in a rocker and suspenders, with a lazy pet who stirs only when the whiskey wagon comes 'round.
I'll send you pigeon from time to time, if I ever make it!
@MLClark another consideration in social fragmentation is opportunities for socialization itself. Here were are “socializing” but without the garlic, pepper, olive oil, and basil of in person face-to-face communication. And there’s the influence of privatized socialization; gotta’ pay to play (or pay investigate play).