Gen X: Feeling Crazy in Crazy Times

I'm not sure how many of you have been following the saga, but this is my third month in Sacramento and I'm already making plans to relocate permanently back to southern Oregon. I already talked a little bit about why that happened, so I won't go into it again. But I did have a thought about this concept of necessary delusion, so I wanted to go into that a little bit. I think it has bearing on what's been on my mind lately.

As a musician and a songwriter, and aspiring star, at least in my younger years, I've always been interested in dreams, and specifically dreams as goals. Right? No one ever got excited about a career in music because they wanted to play for a few people a few times and call it a day. Songwriters all here because of a dream, at one point or another, that led us to the top of this thing called the music business, & because we felt strongly that there was something in our hearts that the world should be able to see. And that, to me, is the valuable part. The thing that gets you going. You don't have to get to exactly where you wanted to, to be glad you didn't stay where you were. But I think we lose track of that. And right now it is everywhere I look.

I walk back from the Thai restaurant to see this little outdoor wine bar that I've stopped in exactly once, even though when I was researching the area, I just assumed I'd be there a few times a week. I walked to the open mic a few blocks away because I wanted to see where it was at, and had a reasonably good shepherd’s pie. That was more than a month ago and I'm almost certain I won't see that place again. And on and on.

But I said it before, I'll say it again, there is no shame in adjusting plans mid flight. And that goes for everything. All these things that I really thought I would engage with in Sacramento, whether they were illusions, or true targets that are now being adjusted, the difference is irrelevant. I thought a certain way about Sacramento, which played a big role in me actually getting here, and that's what needed to happen. I wasn't supposed to stay here, and it's OK that I didn't know at first that my destiny lies in the Rogue valley of Southern Oregon, for many reasons. I am now ready to accept that. Bring it on.

Of course, I'm still looking for a job, which is so difficult to do in the midst of so much existential craziness, which is where the title comes from. I thought I would make a short list of hot button issues right now, just in the interest of documenting a moment in time.

A short list of the things that keep me up at night

Palestine. I won't say much more at the moment just so as not to hijack the thread, but needless to say, the IDF needs to stop its aggression. Enough is enough.

Lebanon. The fact that our country of America is giving cover to Israel, in order to bomb innocent civilians at huge scale with no political repercussions is completely unacceptable.

Ukraine. War with no end in sight.

The climate. This theme will get repeated, but so much is going in the wrong direction, that it's very easy to get overwhelmed. But at every moment, our mandate has to be to do everything we possibly can to halt or slow the proliferation of greenhouse gases. Our longevity as a species depends on it.

The storms. In addition to climate as a long-term, general threat, we are now at a place where existing storms are worse than they used to be, and it's clear that we are not ready to respond appropriately. Just look for any comparisons to the federal response to Katrina versus Helene, and you will see how deeply irresponsible we are right now even compared to the lukewarm talent pool of an administration like that of George W. Bush.

The cost of living. The cost of everyday items along with unaffordable real estate prices and high interest rates has created a negative impact on available spending money for pretty much everyone in my life. It's a universal truth that everyone in this country can afford less than they used to, has to be more careful about spending, and will deplete their savings very quickly in times of need. This is not good.

Healthcare. I've been looking at full-time positions here in the Rogue valley, and it's been slim pickings, as they say, but I'm still confident that something will come my way. But the reason I mentioned that is, I'm seeing something that honestly I don't think I've seen before, which is, certain of these positions in local government, for example, Jackson County, or Josephine County, are basically listed as hourly positions, but with full-time benefits. The reason that's interesting is that it can afford a certain kind of breakdown that I've never seen before. So for example, let's say you end up working a as an office administrator. Let's say you're making $40 an hour. So they'll list that as roughly 80,000 a year of income. But then I've seen breakdowns of the healthcare benefits that come along with that position, which have a line item cost that is literally higher than the actual base pay, think about that for a second. For every dollar that administrative employee is making on their paycheck, another dollar’s worth of their productivity, and more, is being drained invisibly. For a family with a single earner, it might very well be the case that more than 50% of the value generated by their labor is diverted to cover the cost of healthcare. This is a broken system.

Employment. I've recently learned that a large number of private employers, specifically those that are still looking for funding, do a thing where they list lots of positions that they actually don't intend to fill. It's something with the investors, that like to be able to see what those perspective positions are, or would be, without any sort of mandatory deliverable in terms of hiring. So some of these companies have a long list of open positions that they don't intend to fill. Coupled with the prevalence of employers that offer no feedback whatsoever on the application process, the experience of being a jobseeker is more painful now than perhaps it has ever been. The last few years have seen a lot of layoffs in the tech sector, and many salaries are seeing a slight downward trend.

Reproductive Rights. In 2022, the Roberts court, with the help of hacks like Kavanaugh and Coney Barrett, decided to ignore decades of precedence and overturn Roe v Wade, putting thousands of women across this country at risk every day. We cannot ignore the negative effect of this: putting a burden on local providers, as well as challenging the safety of young mothers.

So what's my conclusion? I think this concept of necessary delusion is important to acknowledge. In the attention economy, we are forced as consumers to find ways to disengage. We cannot be present to everything at all times. The modern world never sleeps. So we need this necessary delusion. We need this ability to pretend that things are fine, and safe, and predictable - even if we know in the end, that's not exactly true.

But I think the time has come now, where we need to feel a little more pain collectively; because it seems that will be the only way to meet the moment. Necessary delusion is a problem, if it keeps us from understanding when to move into crisis mode.

This is a crisis. We should act accordingly.