When I hear people claiming we’re in crisis and civilization – if not all humanity – is about to go to hell and the world is going to end and yada yada yada… I can’t help but laugh. I cannot take them seriously. Compared to what we have lived with, COVID and climate change and modern China and Russia are small potatoes.
This is what I grew up with:
Yup. Even in rural northern Michigan in the 60s we had duck and cover drills. A Strategic Air Command base about 50 straight line miles away. Nuclear war was an ever-present possibility.
Consider the implications of teaching children that civilization might end at any moment and they have to be prepared at any minute to protect themselves against a horrific death. Yet except for a few of the more extreme survivalist types, we simply carried on without high levels of anxiety. Today’s global stressors seem, at least to me, trivial in comparison.
I'm Not Dead Yet... 
I think you are right at least when comparing it to COVID , Climate Change and China.
To me the stressor of today isn’t Covid it’s idiots and blowhards. The people who go to to store coughing and sneezing because they need sigarettes.. coughing all over me.. saying they dont have Corona so I should not look that scared.. and I am young it’s just a flue. I have a damaged lung..my guy.. you can’t tell how alright I will be!
People who rebel against the rules in place to protect everyone just because they can’t have garden parties with cheap beer. Anti-Vaxxers who are pushing their agenda and spreading lies. The idiots who burn down a 5G tower because a YouTuber said something. I do find them to be the stressors of this day.
While I do consider you are right and bombs are scarier.. there seem to be a lot more idiots out there. Who are actually killing people making others sick.. because they refuse to not go to a restaurant. I know a guy here got beaten into a hospital for telling a group to tell them to keep distance. Another guy has been beaten to death recently probably for similar reasons. Maybe as gruesome but still kinda scary
LikeLike
Oh yes. I agree! The anti-vaxxers drive me nuts. Absolutely freaking nuts! As do the idiots who freak out over social distancing and face masks. The people who believe, “It can’t happen to me.” There’s a part of me that wishes they would self select right out of the gene pool.
LikeLike
Geez – I remember those drills in elementary school. We were all supposed to jump under our desk and curl up in a ball. The better to kiss your ass goodbye we all said – since even as 8 year olds we realized a full scale nuclear war was NOT survivable. I, grew up less than 20 miles from an Air Force base where some pretty special planes and programs were based. We would have been on the first round of hits. By the time I was a teen I had decided that if the bombs flew, I was getting in the car and driving TOWARDS THE BASE. I’d rather be a black flash shadow on the ground than die slowly of radiation sickness. I was less afraid of the bomb than the tornados which I regularly saw from way too close. Compared to all that – the thing with COVID is that depending on your situation, it can be avoided or guarded against as an individual. Which gives us the power. I have the power to distance myself, wear a mask, and avoid crowds. When we did get some creep sitting next to us in the bus, coughing and hacking with no mask, we get up and move asap. We already learned not to ask people to step away or put their mask on their actual face because yes, little bitty 5 foot tall me was threatened by a man who was about twice my size for asking him to move away. I almost hate to admit it, but at this point I shrug and figure this will weed out a whole lot of stupid fuckers we are better off without. I’ve lived through enough shit at this point, I can’t really work up a lot of scared over anything. Or at least, I can avoid most things I am actually scared of, and the things I can’t avoid, I can’t waste my time to be scared of.
LikeLike
Lol. Even going to school in the early 80s when the Cold War was still going on I remember watching the duck and cover videos. I always wondered just how much that would save you if a bomb really did drop. 💣😕
LikeLike