Okay, so that little bit of context should be enough to get us started – so, back to the beginning:

Cue the music: Right Before My Eyes starts up with the scenes from those moments that marked the before and after of the twenty-first century that we as a species still pretend didn’t really happen: January through March 2020. Let me draw your attention to the goofy lil bastard in the corner, all ready to find his little corner of the world and bury in like a cicada (and much like a cicada, when I do finally emerge, I’m making it everyone’s problem). Travel along the panels and everything should be fairly familiar – the events that historians are already calling a “rolling dumpster fire” and a “pastiche shitshow extraordinaire”. And like many others, during the initial shitshowing I watched attentively, and like all the others who became afflicted with doomerism, I saw the future paths mushroom out in an explosion of possibilities followed almost immediately by an unnamed superpower destroying all other paths except those that lead directly and inevitably to apocalypse (don’t worry, more on this later, I’m sure) – but not only that, no! the precise path chosen by the unnamed superpower can best be described as “the stupidest apocalypse ever.” And from an insider’s perspective, let me tell you: it isn’t awesome.

As the panels move along, you’ll notice that bright-eyed fellow becoming more and more aghast until the words flowing over the screen reach the chorus:

At this point, you’ll be able to notice from the expression on the poor lil fella’s face in the “video” slides above that yes, in-fucking-deed that mf’s mind got fucking broke. Non-metaphorically even. Seriously, it’s taken a few years to put myself back together again, and truth be told, it hasn’t been a super fun ride. That’s actually where this lament fits in – it is one hundred percent an answer to the question, “wtf went wrong?”

*many readers at this point*: “Oh, that’s easy – it’s Trump or Biden or covid or lockdowns or some other Very-Serious-Answer™. Doomer? more like dumber lmao.”

*me, head down, holding the bridge of my nose, eyes shut, spleen in a twist*: “oh my God. holy fucking shit.” [BIG sigh] “oh my fucking God.”

Okay, this is the first stop on the doomer train: if this is how you took the question, then you are most likely not a doomer. And if your impulse is to answer a question like that with a single person or event as the cause then you most definitely are not a doomer. If you really want an answer to the question of what went wrong with the world then just find an actual doomer and ask – we can all give you answers in such great length and at such great detail that you will definitely regret bringing it up in the first place. Honestly, that question is such second nature to the doomer-type that it would be borderline offensive to ask it of each other. So I didn’t.

What then could I possibly mean? Me. I meant me. What the fuck went wrong with me? Fairly early on in this process I recognized my need for therapy but didn’t even bother to look because the one thing I did not need (and still don’t for that matter) was someone to tell me that “it’s gonna be okay.” No the fuck it is not. Sorry, but it ain’t. And while I may not be great at much, I am fully confident that my ability to explain the beyond-fuckedness of our present situation far exceeds anyone else’s ability to paper over death wounds with platitudes. 

You know what? F it! Before we go any further, how about a bit more context, huh? [btw if you’re getting annoyed at the way I keep jumping around or digressing and interjecting – have you considered that maybe doomerism isn’t right for you? Just a thought…] I spent the majority of the 2000s and 2010s being a caregiver to kids and getting myself a formal education (‘02 to ‘12 for my undergrad, and yeah, it felt like a long time, too, and from 2012 to December of 2019 in grad school), and during that time I trained my brain to see the world in a very specific way – one that I will go through at length don’t worry, but for now it’s enough to say that it’s all big picture stuff – or Big Picture stuff, if that helps. And the term I would use to describe who I was at the most fundamental level was a “sober optimist” [not sobriety in the sense of no drugs or alcohol – there are of course sober doomers, but that just ain’t the part of the clubhouse where I plant my kiester], meaning that despite that fact that I know the world is fucked and why, I firmly believed that it could get better – that the right (ie the left) side of history could ultimately come out on top – unlikely? yes of course, but still entirely possible.

[sorry, but this digression is about to do a bit of digressin of its own: I’m using words like “know” and “believe” but they aren’t really what I mean. I don’t know that the world is fucked as a set of propositions that could be proved or disproved, but like “knowing” it’s raining or not when you’re outside – you base this on a whole crapload of perceptions and experiences so that it’s just a basic observation at this point in your existence, nothing more or less. Could I be wrong? Sure, theoretically. But I’m not. This is reality and not theory [again, more on this later, you’re just gonna have to accept my framing for now. Or not – I’m a doomer, not a cop]. And again, I didn’t “believe” that the good fight being actually winnable was something that was either true or false, but as a way of being, a way of orienting my life and personality and of organizing my actions. It was the horizon that I kept my eyes upon as I walked down the road of life. Deep personal identity shit, basically. Again, I’ll go more into this later, don’t worry, it’s kinda what this whole thing is about. But first, context. Always more context.]