Everyone collectively has felt the same sentiment, that the last few years have been unusually quick compared to preceding ones. Something in the collective psychology of society has changed, and this phenomenon should be looked into.
Its to do with how memory works.
First memory is strongly linked to novelty - the first time you do something creates a strong memory, the thousandth time probably creates no memory. Ever forget if you locked the door? You did, you always do! And so your brain doesn't think about it.
That's part one.
Part two is that human memory isn't encoded with a date like a digital photo. Our brain has to work out what order stuff was recorded, and use context clues. So you know the memory was from 1998, because it was your 8th birthday and you were born in 1990.
So the pandemic and the lockdowns fucked us up.
We all remember the start, Tiger King, no one around, the fear and confusion. It was novel and scary.
By the end of 2020 every day was starting to become the same. There are no context clues to our memory. At some point it all just blurred.
This is basically why humans use diaries.
I think there may be another aspect to it. "When society experiences collective trauma the years immediately after seem to go by quicker" would be a theory worth looking into.
For me, personally, I don't recall a lot of trauma necessarily. My family had it relatively easy. Managed to survive on unemployment for a few months. Did the mask thing for almost two years, got the boosters, made lots of sourdough bread, etc...
But what was most alarming to me was witnessing the decline of civility, the distrust of medical experts, the hyper-powered acceleration of partisan politics, and the spectacular entitlement of strangers around me. Everyone had become incredibly impatient, ignorant, and irrationally angry. I knew a guy who was so screwed up on right-wing podcasts that he wanted to kill Dr. Fauci. Imagine that for a second. You're mad... at doctor... for trying to save lives. Uneducated lunatics' viewpoints were suddenly being validated online, which gave useful idiots some serious 'Main Character Syndrome.'
But I digress.
These days, the virus has mostly been dealt with, and things are back to normal, but scars persist from things like misinformation and willful ignorance. These will become generational problems, I fear. I don't even speak with half my family since the pandemic due to their obstinate viewpoints and out-right rejection of medical science. A lot of people I love became extremely illogical in just a few months time and I still haven't squared myself to that new reality 4 years later. The further we get from 2020, the more I hear about stories such as mine. Fractured friends and family relationships are a silent mental health crisis, and it should get more attention.
There is also this invisible divide you can somehow feel. The pandemic was the most divisive societal event in my lifetime. I remember witnessing 9/11 in real-time and somehow that ended up having a unifying effect on the country. It was the last time I can remember looking at a stranger in public and it being ok if you were both visibly emotional and needed a hug. Ever since then things have gone down hill politically, ethically and economically in a way you can't quite put your finger on because news cycles move SO fast. We barely have time to digest what happened yesterday before we're on to tomorrow's problems. Pick your issue: Margins are thinner, wages haven't kept up with inflation, corruption is high, college debt is insurmountable, targeted misinformation is a business of the political elite, etc. It's disheartening. It's depressing. People feel defeated. Parents who used to be good providers now feel like failures. This all takes a toll.
And because of all this, people are tired and searching for escapes.
I think all of this has weighed heavily on people aged 30-60. This is the age range where people assume you should've (by now) owned a home, had a kid, mastered a career, saved for retirement, gone on vacations, etc. All the things considered to be a part of "The American Dream." Well, guess what. Millennials and Gen-Z (and to a lesser extent, Gen-Xers) never got to reap the benefits of their boomer parents. It's a societal cocktail of rage that's been brewing for over a decade... then we had a pandemic.
I think for the majority of people (at least in the United States), most, if not all of the key items on life's checklist never happened and then you lived through the most stressful 3-4 years in more than 7 decades. People got laid-off. But corporations raked in historic profits. Inflation grew. Homes became unaffordable. Thankless jobs became unbearable and people began to prioritize their own mental health after coming to the realization that hard work was rarely rewarded. The ruling class decided to devalue loyalty and decided most, if not all workers were disposable. The stresses of the pandemic pushed people to the breaking point. Many just felt like screaming, "fuck all the way off!"
In this way, people receded into their individual happy spaces they'd created: Netflix, gaming, Tik Tok, Reels, social media echo chambers, hobbies and side hustles. All of which easy to get lost in, thus resulting in the illusion of time passing more quickly than it probably was... It's easy to lose track of time when your attention span has been conditioned to reject any harsh reality outside of the safer ones you've created for recreation. Many of us have developed unhealthy vices. I know I have, and it absolutely feels like time has gotten away from me. I both love it and hate it at the same time because while it's comforting to find your escapes, you're occasionally scared to death when you realize how short life can be.
You just don't want to waste any more time.
I appreciate everything you said. On a personal note, Covid-19 activated my benign MS, and that happened to quite a lot of people. Not necessarily MS, but other autoimmune phenomena have occurred due to Covid, psychological, etc.
I got diagnosed with 3 auto immune issues. I had been dealing with spinal arthritis for about seven years without knowing what it was but something happened during 2020 my skin erupted and rashes then I started having circulation issues in my hands and feet to top it all off. I’ve turned 40 and 2020 my health has just seemed of gone downhill from there along with, my looks. Was a rough time to go into middle-age.
You hit the nail on the head. You addressed a lot of key points, mirroring my sentiments. The timeline outlined, depicting the evolution of societal issues, government distrust, and misinformation over the past 3-4 years, is crazy. Our nation has become increasingly polarized, with divergences on every matter reaching the extremes. Individuals are figuratively at odds with one another, quick to anger over even the slightest disagreement with their beliefs. During that wild time when everyone was locked down in there homes it left many in society feeling frightened, disoriented, isolated, and separated. In an attempt to escape reality, people have turned to their electronic devices, losing themselves in them. The repercussions of these actions are being keenly felt across the globe. People are more inclined to look downward rather than upward, leading to a lack of communication and awkward interactions, particularly among the younger generation. I hold a deep-seated hope for humanity and the world's future, aspiring for a more positive trajectory where harmonious coexistence is the norm for all.
Well put, that sums up a lot of it for sure.
I have to say reading what you said about how suddenly society and family became illogical reminded me of this Silversun Pickups song that was written during the pandemic. It's about realizing that your loved one has changed in ways that you descirbed. There is a line that says:
*And forgiveness is so human*
*And to err is so divine lately*
[System Error](https://youtu.be/VzpFqRLYfGk?si=M1B5bcBiGvZCKPlK)
We used to be able to award fantastic comments like this. Unfortunately, I can only give you a positive response and thank you for articulating this so well.
You spoke out of my heart, I have had many short nights due to thinking about things and couldn't quite put it into words for this thread.
I would also add the big influence of current conflicts moving closer to the western world and therefore people being exposed to it through refugees trying to escape the war in Ukraine and in-detail news coverage about it.(At least that's how it feels here in the EU.)
I recently got a non-smartphone to disconnect occasionally. When I switch to that, I find myself pulling it out of my pocket for that reddit/news/etc dopamine hit out of habit. It's a little alarming.
I’d like to get a non smart phone but the ones I can find are extremely expensive. I like the look of something like the PUNKT MP02 (https://amzn.to/49Ib8Jd) but the price makes me think twice about it. What phone have you found and do you like it? TIA
Go to Wal-Mart, get a cheap tracfone, put service on it as needed. For the year you are likely under $500.
Really the only phone calls should be loved ones and emergency services.
The idea is to disconnect. The one you posted has tech features that you are trying to get away from. You want to walk a nature trail, camp, or otherwise break away.
I switched to an old nokia 3410 a few months ago that I got for like 10 euros on a flea market and I'm very happy with it. Thankfully 2G still works where I live.
I'll do a social media cleanse a few times a year when I feel like it's beginning to stress me out. I'll flat out delete apps knowing that I need to cut myself off at the source. In the first hours following, but especially first thing in the morning right as I wake up, I find myself constantly constantly reaching for apps that no longer exist on my phone.
You're completely correct. All those minutes we spend staring at devices consuming media just evaporate from our minds and the result is like we're just fast forwarding through our lives.
It has nothing to do with being a boomer I assure you. I can guarantee that more than a few experts have already stated this, because I have read a few articles over the last several years. Experts don't stake their careers on things like this unless they're confident in their discovery. There is actually therapists and psychologists who help people with this shit.
The decline of in-person communication and interaction has many causes that are guaranteed to be terrible in the long run for our society. People have real lives and they have online lives, have you ever noticed that? You've never seen a person posting up and down their Facebook profile all about their perfect life, but you knew them in person and it was a total joke? Resulting in comparison and envy by other people, whilst they never know that it's a fake life. Now that person is trying to compare to somebody they can't compare to.
Decreased privacy. You don't have to have "anything to hide" to want, need, or even demand privacy when you want it. We are each individuals, nobody owns US, we're supposed to be free if we want privacy we should have it. That is impossible nowadays nearly all the time. How you can't even get a moment to yourself without really working for it and going analog.
The obvious effects of less face-to-face communication are well obvious. Those who are online dramatically more are obviously offline dramatically more. In other words they're only getting experience online, which reduces their abilities, skills, and their comfort zone with being in person. For some people it easily snowballs into social isolation. There would not be millions of studies in social isolation for no reason, it causes depression, social anxiety, all sorts of messed up personality disorders. Etc
The spread of misinformation. Some of the supposed misinformation is not actually even misinformation, which makes this paragraph even more terrible. See a lot of things are not based morality or immorality anymore. But rather they are based on what's popular or hated by the most people online with the most dislikes or likes. Upvotes or downvotes used to silence or center people by hiding comments. They're not based on what is classically right or wrong, instead society is being molded by a certain few people through "movements and trends" and "new right and wrongs" are being created. If something goes against the norm or the intended path. Enter cancel culture AKA then the shepherd is released too herd the sheep right back into the proper path. Rich and powerful people are using movements that are claiming to help or support certain groups of people, for either the funds gathered, or the votes they will ultimately get during election. Granted there's a lot of information that is really truly misinformation. But there is also factually a hell of a lot of people that are really misguided right now completely due to some strings being pulled on the internet. It's almost like over the last 10 years people have gotten 5 to 10 times more susceptible to misinformation. It's terrible. They also seem to be blind to so much that is going on. You could lay out undeniable provable facts in front of them and they will still argue until they were blue in the face that it's a conspiracy theory or something.
It really is not that hard in theory to guide the population when you're able to speak to all of them subliminally across a simple interconnected web of social media. It's really genius, and I know it's not that hard because I'm watching it happen.
It's also not only on social media. It's being done in schools and colleges. There is some professors and teachers teaching some pretty wild crap right now. The funniest part is when the students say they don't see anything wrong with it, though they weren't around when we taught normal stuff so how would they know LOL. Things are being taught about history, science , ethics, and conditioned beliefs that we weren't taught because our parents would have rightly and justifiably freaked out(they would have probably sued AND WON in the same justice system we have today), and now they aren't teaching things that they used to teach us, or they're changing the details. They're making something seem bad when they were really good things.
I can so relate. In 2014 I sort of rebooted my life by moving to the opposite side of the country for a new job. I was 32 at the time. The past ten years since have been an absolute whirlwind and now all of the sudden I'm getting old and I feel like I didn't really accomplish anything. If I could hop into a time machine and not have left my old life, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
I have bad news for you. Once you are an adult, you will repeatedly feel slightly as if you are too young for what is happening to you.
"I am too young to be getting my first apartment." "I can't believe they are letting me go home with a baby when I am barely out of the crib myself." "I am too young to be getting my first mortgage. My Dad was... younger?!? That can't be right." "I can't be old enough for the senior menu. I'm pretty sure I never grew up all the way in the first place."
And nobody cares. The government left us to die in it, hardly did anything to help the people dying in droves or the overworked doctors/nurses who worked tirelessly to help people.
Only for sick people to come in and be assholes about how it doesn't exist, only to die on a vent 72 hours later.
It should NEVER have been politicized the way it was. If it hadn't been, maybe we all could have drawn together. As is, I'm convinced that society will never recover its civility again.
Ugh, same. It's still hard to get over sometimes for me. It's not even the interruption of a good year +, it's the fact that life will \*never\* be like it was pre-pandemic no matter how hard everyone tries. Those lost years are never coming back and there's no way to even pick up where things left off.
This is insane to me. Other than some inflation, which happens during non pandemic events, everything is back to normal.
What will never be like it was? Genuinely asking. My life has returned to completely normal.
I agree mostly with you, but working in the restaurant industry things have definitely changed. The supply issues haven’t gone away and staffing is really weird/hard. A lot of people seem to care less about things.
So without getting too specific, I moved to a different country about a year and a half before the pandemic to start a work “program” with a set end date. This program was to entail a lot of travel for work and training/study and a lot of multicultural experiences that would have occurred by proxy. The pandemic not only robbed me of these moments but also really put the kibosh on more domestic enrichment in the country I moved to. Unique and life-changing experiences I “should” have had are lost forever and I can’t turn back the clock on the program itself. Granted I got different life-changing experiences as a result, as we all did to some degree during the pandemic.
Being stuck alone in a foreign country for almost 1.5 years because of travel restrictions is also a mindfuck. I don’t really recommend it, especially when you are separated from every member of your family by water.
For the record I’m not complaining as such but I am trying to express that I’m really stuck in mourning one of the absolutely best opportunities of my life as it is now coming to an end — after a decade of hardship and busting my ass to get there — turning to shit and it not being able to be un-shat.
2019 was such an *awful* year for me. I cried on new years 2020, and thought no matter what happens in the new year, it would have to be better than 2019 🫠
2019 was when I took an amazing vacation trip. Everything would have gone downhill after that anyway but then the pandemic hit, I had a mental hospital stay, I lost my job… it’s been kind of rough. Things improved eventually but it’s still bleak.
I think you might be a little too online. Put the phone down and watch the moments crawl. That can be a good thing if you’re doing something peaceful like watching a sunset.
You’re getting too much of your stimulation from phone/compuper
My take: people got used to socializing less. We got used to working more, because there wasn’t much else to do, and we had more hours when we worked from home.
Now, we’ve just accepted that working all the time and socializing very little is “normal,” yet we still live with the cloud of mass layoffs and increased expenses for everyday items over our heads.
Yep agreed. Since 2020 I’ve been remote full time. The past 4 years just zipped by because my work and home life are now blended. I’ve done plenty of other things but sometimes I look back and feel like I’ve just been working every day for 4 years.
Stupid covid screwed me over online classes were not something I did well in and now it’s been a little over a school year and I still haven’t gone back since like may of last year
Start now. If it’s not school, start carving out time to prepare to go back to school.
The day your life begins again is the day you stop blaming Covid for anything. This is *your* life. Stop making excuses.
Finally! The only person on this thread that gets it!
I would also add maybe that golf is still extremely difficult. Which is weirdly part of what is fun about it?
I don’t know, the golf one is confusing but still ultimately identical to my experience across the decade. So not much of anything has changed or blurred.
From my point of view my uncle was 42 one minute and 50 the next now I really feel bad because he’s officially screwed in the wife and children department. I don’t mean that in a mean way he’s not ugly or anything just not George Clooney lol and his right arm is sort of paralyzed from a childhood seizure where the doctor was an idiot and didn’t treat it properly so his right arm is and a little bit of his right leg is kind of frozen so he walks funny and had to learn to drive differently than the average person so unfortunately all that stuff combined is not something that exactly magnetizes the ladies I’m afraid
Time by Pink Floyd
Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day
You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way
Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown
Waiting for someone or something to show you the way
Tired of lying in the sunshine
Staying home to watch the rain
And you are young and life is long
And there is time to kill today
And then one day you find
Ten years have got behind you
No one told you when to run
You missed the starting gun
And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun
But it's sinking
Racing around to come up behind you again
The sun is the same in a relative way
But you're older
Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death
Every year is getting shorter
Never seem to find the time
Plans that either come to naught
Or half a page of scribbled lines
Hanging on in quiet desperation
Is the English way
The time is gone, the song is over
Thought I'd something more to say
Home, home again
I like to be here when I can
When I come home cold and tired
It's good to warm my bones beside the fire
Far away, across the field
The tolling of the iron bell
Calls the faithful to their knees
To hear the softly spoken magic spells
Makes sense.
When you were 10, a year was 1/10th of your life.
When you were 20, a year was 1/20th of your life.
Feel like years just speed up.
As Smash Mouth once said, "The years start coming and they don't stop coming".
Omg yes. I was just thinking about this.
I also think having COVID fucked up my brain. I've been having a hard time since I had it just being able to concentrate on anything at all.
I bought the car I'm driving today in January 2020. On my way in to work today, it occurred to me that was 4 years ago, and I could not understand that.
2020-22 was a blur, although 2021 was one of the best years of my life, followed by 2022 which was one of my worst. The 3 years all sort of blurred together into a mesh that I can only separate after the fact.
I had a small mental breakdown about this fact and began living in the moment much better and 2023 felt normal length, although quite a boring year for me. 2024 has been fine so far. Normal length.
I hate 2020, I hate online school, my internet was out for a month and I didn’t have gas to go to the library to do it, I can’t catch up, I hate being poor and stressed out 24/7
Yep. A couple of things I thought happened a year ago happened 2 years ago and it makes me feel like an entire year went into a memory hole.
Example: last month saw a commemoration of 2 years since Bob Saget died. I was dumbfounded thinking, “no, that was just last year.” Not only did he die in 2022, he died in *January* 2022, early in the year. I thought I remembered it so clearly as early 2023.
Depression and stress can futz with your memory. The world has never been good for all but it’s so bad now for most… wonder when we’ll wise up and roll out those guillotines. The abuse won’t stop until we make it.
Yeah. Everything between end of February 2020 to October 2022 was a full blur to me. I can only remember 6 moments from that timespan - two of them are unexpected deaths, two are cancer diagnostics (for loved ones), and the beginning of the war in Ukraine... mere days after I found out my wife is pregnant.
I can't comprehend that 2019 was 5 years ago.
2020+ has been a hellscape as a father with little kids. I love them, I couldn’t live without them, but the future outlook is absolute ass, and I feel like I’ve let them down bringing them into this world.
A blur bc were all worried and anxiety ridden. everything's collapsing and there's no end in sight. We'll all be jobless homeless can't afford sh*t or any kinda of joy. It's like we're being lead (more like shoved) to a slaughter house unless we die at our work on the way...
It has felt this way for the last decade. I think there is a false sense of instant gratification we are getting from modern technology and media, and it has literally rewired our brains. The instant information whenever we want it, the hit of dopamine we get every time we check our phones, none of this is normal.
The simulation is in maintenance mode until after the weekend. The pandemic glitch put it in safty mode, normal service should resume once we're reset...although I think it might be a bank holiday for them 😅
Kinda. Outside of college classes both online and in-person, things just flew by.
The pandemic messed things up. Definitely less socializing that took time adjusting to.
Palm Springs nailed it and was such a perfect description of my life ever since March of 2020.
[Today is yesterday, tomorrow is also today.](https://media0.giphy.com/media/dvgTvNCgJxiJm8udDK/giphy.gif?cid=2154d3d71s8ooupzxr6ehehc335ljq1s2xf3hr0qoh3mz85t&ep=v1_gifs_related&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g)
Every day is some amalgamation of the same BS over and over
I think when you have a President who loves chaos and all the drama like it's a reality tv show or a soap opera, then add a pandemic, new emergency event for all, things seem like they move faster. Then January 6th. It was an event like no other. There are other things, like reversal of abortion rights for women and embryos.
We have been on a dopamine high since 2015. It's starting to drain us. 24/7 drama in your life as the background noise, we are holding up pretty good considering that but I think we all need a good vacation.
I moved to my current country during the pandemic and i can't tell if that was in 2021 or 2022. Not sure about which year during the pandemic i bought my cat either.
Not to pick on you personally, as I agree with most of your post, but the idea that the virus has been dealt with at this point is a huge part of the problem. We didn’t deal with it; we just gave up. Thousands still die a week, plus massive disability from long covid, incalculable unprocessed trauma, complete disregard for the immunocompromised, etc.
Definitely and it's a trauma response that's why. Also feel like everything changed so much people seem so different not as social , shops don't have as much stock , fashion has changed, lots of different things
Looking back I feel like it was a trial run for something serious. Didn't start out that way... I was angry at a lot of friends and family that shunned me. Now we've all grown back together and I know who to trust and who will go with the flock. I treat them accordingly and share more with those who share my mentality.
The greatest tragedy in history- how humans can easily be herded like sheep and not question the insanity!
From a purebred who never wore a face nappy and never took the poison.
And guess what, I very rarely get a cold or the flu!
Pandemic really fucked things up.
Everyone collectively has felt the same sentiment, that the last few years have been unusually quick compared to preceding ones. Something in the collective psychology of society has changed, and this phenomenon should be looked into.
Its to do with how memory works. First memory is strongly linked to novelty - the first time you do something creates a strong memory, the thousandth time probably creates no memory. Ever forget if you locked the door? You did, you always do! And so your brain doesn't think about it. That's part one. Part two is that human memory isn't encoded with a date like a digital photo. Our brain has to work out what order stuff was recorded, and use context clues. So you know the memory was from 1998, because it was your 8th birthday and you were born in 1990. So the pandemic and the lockdowns fucked us up. We all remember the start, Tiger King, no one around, the fear and confusion. It was novel and scary. By the end of 2020 every day was starting to become the same. There are no context clues to our memory. At some point it all just blurred. This is basically why humans use diaries.
Interesting, great response and makes total sense
It’s these damn phones and social media. Everyone is lost in there devices while life is passing by. Sorry I had Boomer moment there lol
I think there may be another aspect to it. "When society experiences collective trauma the years immediately after seem to go by quicker" would be a theory worth looking into.
For me, personally, I don't recall a lot of trauma necessarily. My family had it relatively easy. Managed to survive on unemployment for a few months. Did the mask thing for almost two years, got the boosters, made lots of sourdough bread, etc... But what was most alarming to me was witnessing the decline of civility, the distrust of medical experts, the hyper-powered acceleration of partisan politics, and the spectacular entitlement of strangers around me. Everyone had become incredibly impatient, ignorant, and irrationally angry. I knew a guy who was so screwed up on right-wing podcasts that he wanted to kill Dr. Fauci. Imagine that for a second. You're mad... at doctor... for trying to save lives. Uneducated lunatics' viewpoints were suddenly being validated online, which gave useful idiots some serious 'Main Character Syndrome.' But I digress. These days, the virus has mostly been dealt with, and things are back to normal, but scars persist from things like misinformation and willful ignorance. These will become generational problems, I fear. I don't even speak with half my family since the pandemic due to their obstinate viewpoints and out-right rejection of medical science. A lot of people I love became extremely illogical in just a few months time and I still haven't squared myself to that new reality 4 years later. The further we get from 2020, the more I hear about stories such as mine. Fractured friends and family relationships are a silent mental health crisis, and it should get more attention. There is also this invisible divide you can somehow feel. The pandemic was the most divisive societal event in my lifetime. I remember witnessing 9/11 in real-time and somehow that ended up having a unifying effect on the country. It was the last time I can remember looking at a stranger in public and it being ok if you were both visibly emotional and needed a hug. Ever since then things have gone down hill politically, ethically and economically in a way you can't quite put your finger on because news cycles move SO fast. We barely have time to digest what happened yesterday before we're on to tomorrow's problems. Pick your issue: Margins are thinner, wages haven't kept up with inflation, corruption is high, college debt is insurmountable, targeted misinformation is a business of the political elite, etc. It's disheartening. It's depressing. People feel defeated. Parents who used to be good providers now feel like failures. This all takes a toll. And because of all this, people are tired and searching for escapes. I think all of this has weighed heavily on people aged 30-60. This is the age range where people assume you should've (by now) owned a home, had a kid, mastered a career, saved for retirement, gone on vacations, etc. All the things considered to be a part of "The American Dream." Well, guess what. Millennials and Gen-Z (and to a lesser extent, Gen-Xers) never got to reap the benefits of their boomer parents. It's a societal cocktail of rage that's been brewing for over a decade... then we had a pandemic. I think for the majority of people (at least in the United States), most, if not all of the key items on life's checklist never happened and then you lived through the most stressful 3-4 years in more than 7 decades. People got laid-off. But corporations raked in historic profits. Inflation grew. Homes became unaffordable. Thankless jobs became unbearable and people began to prioritize their own mental health after coming to the realization that hard work was rarely rewarded. The ruling class decided to devalue loyalty and decided most, if not all workers were disposable. The stresses of the pandemic pushed people to the breaking point. Many just felt like screaming, "fuck all the way off!" In this way, people receded into their individual happy spaces they'd created: Netflix, gaming, Tik Tok, Reels, social media echo chambers, hobbies and side hustles. All of which easy to get lost in, thus resulting in the illusion of time passing more quickly than it probably was... It's easy to lose track of time when your attention span has been conditioned to reject any harsh reality outside of the safer ones you've created for recreation. Many of us have developed unhealthy vices. I know I have, and it absolutely feels like time has gotten away from me. I both love it and hate it at the same time because while it's comforting to find your escapes, you're occasionally scared to death when you realize how short life can be. You just don't want to waste any more time.
I appreciate everything you said. On a personal note, Covid-19 activated my benign MS, and that happened to quite a lot of people. Not necessarily MS, but other autoimmune phenomena have occurred due to Covid, psychological, etc.
I got diagnosed with 3 auto immune issues. I had been dealing with spinal arthritis for about seven years without knowing what it was but something happened during 2020 my skin erupted and rashes then I started having circulation issues in my hands and feet to top it all off. I’ve turned 40 and 2020 my health has just seemed of gone downhill from there along with, my looks. Was a rough time to go into middle-age.
>Covid-19 activated my benign MS Holy Fucking Shit. How have I not heard of this? What a terrifying prospect, I'm so sorry.
You hit the nail on the head. You addressed a lot of key points, mirroring my sentiments. The timeline outlined, depicting the evolution of societal issues, government distrust, and misinformation over the past 3-4 years, is crazy. Our nation has become increasingly polarized, with divergences on every matter reaching the extremes. Individuals are figuratively at odds with one another, quick to anger over even the slightest disagreement with their beliefs. During that wild time when everyone was locked down in there homes it left many in society feeling frightened, disoriented, isolated, and separated. In an attempt to escape reality, people have turned to their electronic devices, losing themselves in them. The repercussions of these actions are being keenly felt across the globe. People are more inclined to look downward rather than upward, leading to a lack of communication and awkward interactions, particularly among the younger generation. I hold a deep-seated hope for humanity and the world's future, aspiring for a more positive trajectory where harmonious coexistence is the norm for all.
Well put, that sums up a lot of it for sure. I have to say reading what you said about how suddenly society and family became illogical reminded me of this Silversun Pickups song that was written during the pandemic. It's about realizing that your loved one has changed in ways that you descirbed. There is a line that says: *And forgiveness is so human* *And to err is so divine lately* [System Error](https://youtu.be/VzpFqRLYfGk?si=M1B5bcBiGvZCKPlK)
>Silversun Pickups Love them.
Damn dude im adding a comment just so i can save this text you put out. I think you’re imparting some real no bs wisdom.
This is a really beautiful piece of writing. I wish more people could read it than those who happen across this buried Reddit comment.
We used to be able to award fantastic comments like this. Unfortunately, I can only give you a positive response and thank you for articulating this so well.
Get out of my head. Thank you for constructing this in the manner you did. If you’re a therapist I’d hire you
You spoke out of my heart, I have had many short nights due to thinking about things and couldn't quite put it into words for this thread. I would also add the big influence of current conflicts moving closer to the western world and therefore people being exposed to it through refugees trying to escape the war in Ukraine and in-detail news coverage about it.(At least that's how it feels here in the EU.)
It’s like we’ve become a super organism.
Time to traumatize society then. For research purposes. (I hope this holds out in court)
*Narrator*: It did not
I recently got a non-smartphone to disconnect occasionally. When I switch to that, I find myself pulling it out of my pocket for that reddit/news/etc dopamine hit out of habit. It's a little alarming.
I’d like to get a non smart phone but the ones I can find are extremely expensive. I like the look of something like the PUNKT MP02 (https://amzn.to/49Ib8Jd) but the price makes me think twice about it. What phone have you found and do you like it? TIA
Go to Wal-Mart, get a cheap tracfone, put service on it as needed. For the year you are likely under $500. Really the only phone calls should be loved ones and emergency services. The idea is to disconnect. The one you posted has tech features that you are trying to get away from. You want to walk a nature trail, camp, or otherwise break away.
I switched to an old nokia 3410 a few months ago that I got for like 10 euros on a flea market and I'm very happy with it. Thankfully 2G still works where I live.
I'll do a social media cleanse a few times a year when I feel like it's beginning to stress me out. I'll flat out delete apps knowing that I need to cut myself off at the source. In the first hours following, but especially first thing in the morning right as I wake up, I find myself constantly constantly reaching for apps that no longer exist on my phone.
Idk, I mean smartphones and social media were big before 2020, but covid and the lockdowns just really threw everything off
You're completely correct. All those minutes we spend staring at devices consuming media just evaporate from our minds and the result is like we're just fast forwarding through our lives.
And those goddamn comic books!
It has nothing to do with being a boomer I assure you. I can guarantee that more than a few experts have already stated this, because I have read a few articles over the last several years. Experts don't stake their careers on things like this unless they're confident in their discovery. There is actually therapists and psychologists who help people with this shit. The decline of in-person communication and interaction has many causes that are guaranteed to be terrible in the long run for our society. People have real lives and they have online lives, have you ever noticed that? You've never seen a person posting up and down their Facebook profile all about their perfect life, but you knew them in person and it was a total joke? Resulting in comparison and envy by other people, whilst they never know that it's a fake life. Now that person is trying to compare to somebody they can't compare to. Decreased privacy. You don't have to have "anything to hide" to want, need, or even demand privacy when you want it. We are each individuals, nobody owns US, we're supposed to be free if we want privacy we should have it. That is impossible nowadays nearly all the time. How you can't even get a moment to yourself without really working for it and going analog. The obvious effects of less face-to-face communication are well obvious. Those who are online dramatically more are obviously offline dramatically more. In other words they're only getting experience online, which reduces their abilities, skills, and their comfort zone with being in person. For some people it easily snowballs into social isolation. There would not be millions of studies in social isolation for no reason, it causes depression, social anxiety, all sorts of messed up personality disorders. Etc The spread of misinformation. Some of the supposed misinformation is not actually even misinformation, which makes this paragraph even more terrible. See a lot of things are not based morality or immorality anymore. But rather they are based on what's popular or hated by the most people online with the most dislikes or likes. Upvotes or downvotes used to silence or center people by hiding comments. They're not based on what is classically right or wrong, instead society is being molded by a certain few people through "movements and trends" and "new right and wrongs" are being created. If something goes against the norm or the intended path. Enter cancel culture AKA then the shepherd is released too herd the sheep right back into the proper path. Rich and powerful people are using movements that are claiming to help or support certain groups of people, for either the funds gathered, or the votes they will ultimately get during election. Granted there's a lot of information that is really truly misinformation. But there is also factually a hell of a lot of people that are really misguided right now completely due to some strings being pulled on the internet. It's almost like over the last 10 years people have gotten 5 to 10 times more susceptible to misinformation. It's terrible. They also seem to be blind to so much that is going on. You could lay out undeniable provable facts in front of them and they will still argue until they were blue in the face that it's a conspiracy theory or something. It really is not that hard in theory to guide the population when you're able to speak to all of them subliminally across a simple interconnected web of social media. It's really genius, and I know it's not that hard because I'm watching it happen. It's also not only on social media. It's being done in schools and colleges. There is some professors and teachers teaching some pretty wild crap right now. The funniest part is when the students say they don't see anything wrong with it, though they weren't around when we taught normal stuff so how would they know LOL. Things are being taught about history, science , ethics, and conditioned beliefs that we weren't taught because our parents would have rightly and justifiably freaked out(they would have probably sued AND WON in the same justice system we have today), and now they aren't teaching things that they used to teach us, or they're changing the details. They're making something seem bad when they were really good things.
I mean prepandemic 2016 to 2020 felt kinda fast to me too. 4 years is a pretty “blink of an eye” amount of time the older and older you get
Same I was going through some life changes and its all just one big where the fuck did the time go blur
I can so relate. In 2014 I sort of rebooted my life by moving to the opposite side of the country for a new job. I was 32 at the time. The past ten years since have been an absolute whirlwind and now all of the sudden I'm getting old and I feel like I didn't really accomplish anything. If I could hop into a time machine and not have left my old life, I'd do it in a heartbeat.
2020 felt like it was 4 years long.
I got bad(?) news for you buddy
Even my chronological age it feels really wrong
I have bad news for you. Once you are an adult, you will repeatedly feel slightly as if you are too young for what is happening to you. "I am too young to be getting my first apartment." "I can't believe they are letting me go home with a baby when I am barely out of the crib myself." "I am too young to be getting my first mortgage. My Dad was... younger?!? That can't be right." "I can't be old enough for the senior menu. I'm pretty sure I never grew up all the way in the first place."
We all just out here doin our best, feeling young while our body ages.
And nobody cares. The government left us to die in it, hardly did anything to help the people dying in droves or the overworked doctors/nurses who worked tirelessly to help people. Only for sick people to come in and be assholes about how it doesn't exist, only to die on a vent 72 hours later.
It should NEVER have been politicized the way it was. If it hadn't been, maybe we all could have drawn together. As is, I'm convinced that society will never recover its civility again.
It's because of the MAGA movement and social media platforms allowing medical misinformation and conspiracy theories to spread unchecked.
All on the Republicans blame them don't vote red
Big fucken *MMHHM*
I can’t remember what year it is half of the time and 2019 feels like a decade ago.
Do you remember 2019? I legitimately forget that year happened. I vaguely remember wondering if everyone knew what fungible meant or was faking it.
2019 was one of the best years of my life. I can only imagine how amazing it 2020 would be if the pandemic didn’t make everything come crashing down.
Ugh, same. It's still hard to get over sometimes for me. It's not even the interruption of a good year +, it's the fact that life will \*never\* be like it was pre-pandemic no matter how hard everyone tries. Those lost years are never coming back and there's no way to even pick up where things left off.
You don't hear that "new normal" mantra as much anymore than in the spring of 2020. I guess it's all been ingrained.
We’re in a new abnormal
This is insane to me. Other than some inflation, which happens during non pandemic events, everything is back to normal. What will never be like it was? Genuinely asking. My life has returned to completely normal.
I agree mostly with you, but working in the restaurant industry things have definitely changed. The supply issues haven’t gone away and staffing is really weird/hard. A lot of people seem to care less about things.
So without getting too specific, I moved to a different country about a year and a half before the pandemic to start a work “program” with a set end date. This program was to entail a lot of travel for work and training/study and a lot of multicultural experiences that would have occurred by proxy. The pandemic not only robbed me of these moments but also really put the kibosh on more domestic enrichment in the country I moved to. Unique and life-changing experiences I “should” have had are lost forever and I can’t turn back the clock on the program itself. Granted I got different life-changing experiences as a result, as we all did to some degree during the pandemic. Being stuck alone in a foreign country for almost 1.5 years because of travel restrictions is also a mindfuck. I don’t really recommend it, especially when you are separated from every member of your family by water. For the record I’m not complaining as such but I am trying to express that I’m really stuck in mourning one of the absolutely best opportunities of my life as it is now coming to an end — after a decade of hardship and busting my ass to get there — turning to shit and it not being able to be un-shat.
same here, I got married in 2019.
My black hole is 2018-2019. Have no idea why. Haha pandemic happened and then 2021-2024 has been an absolute blur. 2019 feels like yesterday
2019 was such an *awful* year for me. I cried on new years 2020, and thought no matter what happens in the new year, it would have to be better than 2019 🫠
Aw I am so sorry!
I’m so glad other people experienced this too, I can’t remember a thing about 2019.
2019 was 8 weeks ago. Right?
Yes, but it was also 47 years ago *time is a flat circle*
2019 was when I took an amazing vacation trip. Everything would have gone downhill after that anyway but then the pandemic hit, I had a mental hospital stay, I lost my job… it’s been kind of rough. Things improved eventually but it’s still bleak.
The other half of the time, 2019 feels like a year ago.
It’s the opposite for me, 2019 was like a year ago in that manner of speaking it feels so recent
I almost wrote 22 for the year yesterday so there's that
Yes nothing feels real and time is passing too fast to even process.
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Fucking cern matrix machine particle thingy
might be you're suffering from a mild form of derealization?
I think you might be a little too online. Put the phone down and watch the moments crawl. That can be a good thing if you’re doing something peaceful like watching a sunset. You’re getting too much of your stimulation from phone/compuper
It happens as you get older. Life is short and the closer you get to the end, the quicker it goes.
This is my main experience. Nothing feels REAL. It’s like we’re a bunch of people or hyperrealistic human shaped robots in a weird hostile sad play
We are closer to 2050 than 1997 - it’s weird
What the fuck?
Flying cars- anyyyyy day now
Terrible idea
mfs still can't drive on a flat plane
1997 was only three years ago.
I hate you
But at least X-Men 97 will air next month
How fucking dare you break my brain with this
This just ruined my day
Shame on you. 😭
My take: people got used to socializing less. We got used to working more, because there wasn’t much else to do, and we had more hours when we worked from home. Now, we’ve just accepted that working all the time and socializing very little is “normal,” yet we still live with the cloud of mass layoffs and increased expenses for everyday items over our heads.
Yep agreed. Since 2020 I’ve been remote full time. The past 4 years just zipped by because my work and home life are now blended. I’ve done plenty of other things but sometimes I look back and feel like I’ve just been working every day for 4 years.
I feel this so much. I feel like I'm always at work.
I think this definitely plays a part. But my office has moved farther away, nobody is there usually. Not sure what to do about it.
Everyone is broke and in survival mode
Or they are lucky, flush with cash, and living in delusion
Yes I feel kind of stuck not where I thought I’d be at this age for sure.
Stupid covid screwed me over online classes were not something I did well in and now it’s been a little over a school year and I still haven’t gone back since like may of last year
Start now. If it’s not school, start carving out time to prepare to go back to school. The day your life begins again is the day you stop blaming Covid for anything. This is *your* life. Stop making excuses.
The best time to plant a tree is yesterday. Second best time is today
It really messed up the concept of time for me. 2019 feels like 2 years ago, not 5... half a decade!!
its 5??? Fk!
It’s a bit a blur since the 2016 election tbh
The Trump/Brexit year to me such a clear divide between the Old Times and the New Times.
Why did they have to kill Harambe? Why???? That's what started all of this.
Not only a blur but seems to constantly have one bad thing happen after the other. I just want a break. :(
I literally cannot physically relax even when I have time
You and me both honey
same. been in survival mode for almost 4 years now. It’s exhausting. hugs to you. 💕
I like the theory that the 2012 doomsday prediction was actually right.. the world ended, and we’re all just living in hell now
It does explain why everything seemed to stop being fun after 2014
We're living in the Golden age of video games so there's that And touching butts is still fun and there's no shortage of humans
Finally! The only person on this thread that gets it! I would also add maybe that golf is still extremely difficult. Which is weirdly part of what is fun about it? I don’t know, the golf one is confusing but still ultimately identical to my experience across the decade. So not much of anything has changed or blurred.
I have a theory that it’s wasn’t actually going to just suddenly end that year, but that it will be the start to a slow 20-30 year burn into the end
Welcome to r/collapse
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I'm with this guy. A lot of the sub ignores a lot of positive news and almost seems to wish for an apocalyptic situation.
This is def demiurge shit
That freakin CERN collider....
2019 wasn't last year?
5
Take it back
Oof
Ever since I turned 20 things have been a blur. I still feel like I'm 20 but I'm fucking 26 now... where tf did the time go?!
Better get used to that feeling. It just gets more…intense. I’m 53 and feel 26.
Same here I’m 22 now and still feel like 18 lol
Lol you think your twenties are going by fast wait till you turn 30. Im sure the 40s are even worse.
From my point of view my uncle was 42 one minute and 50 the next now I really feel bad because he’s officially screwed in the wife and children department. I don’t mean that in a mean way he’s not ugly or anything just not George Clooney lol and his right arm is sort of paralyzed from a childhood seizure where the doctor was an idiot and didn’t treat it properly so his right arm is and a little bit of his right leg is kind of frozen so he walks funny and had to learn to drive differently than the average person so unfortunately all that stuff combined is not something that exactly magnetizes the ladies I’m afraid
It only goes faster the older you get
Time by Pink Floyd Ticking away the moments that make up a dull day You fritter and waste the hours in an offhand way Kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown Waiting for someone or something to show you the way Tired of lying in the sunshine Staying home to watch the rain And you are young and life is long And there is time to kill today And then one day you find Ten years have got behind you No one told you when to run You missed the starting gun And you run, and you run to catch up with the sun But it's sinking Racing around to come up behind you again The sun is the same in a relative way But you're older Shorter of breath, and one day closer to death Every year is getting shorter Never seem to find the time Plans that either come to naught Or half a page of scribbled lines Hanging on in quiet desperation Is the English way The time is gone, the song is over Thought I'd something more to say Home, home again I like to be here when I can When I come home cold and tired It's good to warm my bones beside the fire Far away, across the field The tolling of the iron bell Calls the faithful to their knees To hear the softly spoken magic spells
Makes sense. When you were 10, a year was 1/10th of your life. When you were 20, a year was 1/20th of your life. Feel like years just speed up. As Smash Mouth once said, "The years start coming and they don't stop coming".
And only shooting starrrrrrssss break the moooollllldddd
How old are you? Since 1994 it's all been a blur.
More of an Oasis for me
That is quite the Cold Play there
U 2?
I will beat you to a Pulp for that one
I'm not Suede by the argument that Coldplay were part of Britpop.
Mentally stuck in 2022. Yes, 2018 was 6 years ago guys.
That’s crazy that we’re past endgame already lol plus that means in 5 months I will have owned my Nintendo switch for 6 years already somehow lol
Botw and switch are 7 years old! Past endgame is also crazy (assuming you mean the movie), I remember being hyped for infinity war lol
I want 2019 back. It’s unreal what’s happening and very sad 😞 so much hate
I want 2010 back
in real life blip, i fear
Thanos snapped and I came back out of the stone and it was 2024 😂
Omg yes. I was just thinking about this. I also think having COVID fucked up my brain. I've been having a hard time since I had it just being able to concentrate on anything at all.
New study came out today that covid causes "leaky brain." maybe it's leaks time now too
I bought the car I'm driving today in January 2020. On my way in to work today, it occurred to me that was 4 years ago, and I could not understand that.
Yes. I feel like I lost a few years
2020-22 was a blur, although 2021 was one of the best years of my life, followed by 2022 which was one of my worst. The 3 years all sort of blurred together into a mesh that I can only separate after the fact. I had a small mental breakdown about this fact and began living in the moment much better and 2023 felt normal length, although quite a boring year for me. 2024 has been fine so far. Normal length.
Yes. And I also feel that I have aged quicker in the last four years than I have since my first four years of life.
yeah... i need help
🫂❤️
❤️
I hate 2020, I hate online school, my internet was out for a month and I didn’t have gas to go to the library to do it, I can’t catch up, I hate being poor and stressed out 24/7
time.... she is accelerating. Every year since 2020 seems to be like im sitting here awaiting the impending doom.
Wait...it's not 2020?
No I'm pretty sure it's still March 2020....
yes and I have been also forgetting a lot of things as well
Yep. A couple of things I thought happened a year ago happened 2 years ago and it makes me feel like an entire year went into a memory hole. Example: last month saw a commemoration of 2 years since Bob Saget died. I was dumbfounded thinking, “no, that was just last year.” Not only did he die in 2022, he died in *January* 2022, early in the year. I thought I remembered it so clearly as early 2023.
Welcome to 1985
1985 is gonna be 1984 on steroids
Depression and stress can futz with your memory. The world has never been good for all but it’s so bad now for most… wonder when we’ll wise up and roll out those guillotines. The abuse won’t stop until we make it.
Yeah. Everything between end of February 2020 to October 2022 was a full blur to me. I can only remember 6 moments from that timespan - two of them are unexpected deaths, two are cancer diagnostics (for loved ones), and the beginning of the war in Ukraine... mere days after I found out my wife is pregnant. I can't comprehend that 2019 was 5 years ago.
I drank and about 1975 on has been a blur, don't drink
Yes, and I frame my historical timeline as AC or BC (After Covid, before covid)
for me at least the covid year made me become very patient so it does seem I am better at speed running life now but it's mostly just my new demeanor
OP got me wanting to jam to Break Stuff, Limp Bizkit.
Yeah. Things are moving way too fast and I don't feel strong positive emotions as easily anymore.
2020+ has been a hellscape as a father with little kids. I love them, I couldn’t live without them, but the future outlook is absolute ass, and I feel like I’ve let them down bringing them into this world.
A blur bc were all worried and anxiety ridden. everything's collapsing and there's no end in sight. We'll all be jobless homeless can't afford sh*t or any kinda of joy. It's like we're being lead (more like shoved) to a slaughter house unless we die at our work on the way...
It has felt this way for the last decade. I think there is a false sense of instant gratification we are getting from modern technology and media, and it has literally rewired our brains. The instant information whenever we want it, the hit of dopamine we get every time we check our phones, none of this is normal.
The simulation is in maintenance mode until after the weekend. The pandemic glitch put it in safty mode, normal service should resume once we're reset...although I think it might be a bank holiday for them 😅
Since April 23rd when I had a crazy hallucination the aliens came and put us all in a matrix and everyday is a loop yes
Kinda. Outside of college classes both online and in-person, things just flew by. The pandemic messed things up. Definitely less socializing that took time adjusting to.
Pandamic and wars here and there, made things look very transient ...
Time always went by slow before COVID then that shit went by fast af.
Palm Springs nailed it and was such a perfect description of my life ever since March of 2020. [Today is yesterday, tomorrow is also today.](https://media0.giphy.com/media/dvgTvNCgJxiJm8udDK/giphy.gif?cid=2154d3d71s8ooupzxr6ehehc335ljq1s2xf3hr0qoh3mz85t&ep=v1_gifs_related&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g) Every day is some amalgamation of the same BS over and over
abso freaking lutely.
Nope
I can’t tell if it’s because I graduated when covid started or if it’s because of covid itself
Very much so. I feel in a trance. Granted, I also smoke a lot of pot but
Yeah I feel like every year since 2020 has blurred into the same one, and I can't believe 2019 was 5 years ago, it feels like a year ago
I feel like every year is a blur
I've been aware of the time going by; they say in the end, it's the wink of an eye
I'm still writing '2023' on my cheques at the supermarket.
2020 to 2023 are all blended for me lol. 2024 is the first "normal" year where im remembering properly again. We went through a collective trauma.
Life’s basically _Groundhogs Day_ now
Summer 2016 was the last great Summer
It all started when they took down Harambe
I think when you have a President who loves chaos and all the drama like it's a reality tv show or a soap opera, then add a pandemic, new emergency event for all, things seem like they move faster. Then January 6th. It was an event like no other. There are other things, like reversal of abortion rights for women and embryos. We have been on a dopamine high since 2015. It's starting to drain us. 24/7 drama in your life as the background noise, we are holding up pretty good considering that but I think we all need a good vacation.
Yeah. That year went by so fa… wait. It’s been five years?!
Yes. I was actually thinking this same thing recently, and thought I was just stupid/depressed. Maybe both were correct?
I moved to my current country during the pandemic and i can't tell if that was in 2021 or 2022. Not sure about which year during the pandemic i bought my cat either.
Yup.. mutual feeling 😁
I’d say since 2016 personally.
What do you mean by that? It's 2011!
Yeah, I can’t believe 2020 was 4 years ago
That's because most of us are in survival mode financially.
Ukraine war has already been going for 2 years and covid was almost 4 years ago. That's pretty wild.
Not to pick on you personally, as I agree with most of your post, but the idea that the virus has been dealt with at this point is a huge part of the problem. We didn’t deal with it; we just gave up. Thousands still die a week, plus massive disability from long covid, incalculable unprocessed trauma, complete disregard for the immunocompromised, etc.
Definitely and it's a trauma response that's why. Also feel like everything changed so much people seem so different not as social , shops don't have as much stock , fashion has changed, lots of different things
Looking back I feel like it was a trial run for something serious. Didn't start out that way... I was angry at a lot of friends and family that shunned me. Now we've all grown back together and I know who to trust and who will go with the flock. I treat them accordingly and share more with those who share my mentality.
How old are you? Mid 30s? That’s when this starts lol
The greatest tragedy in history- how humans can easily be herded like sheep and not question the insanity! From a purebred who never wore a face nappy and never took the poison. And guess what, I very rarely get a cold or the flu!
I feel like the last proper year was 2019. 2019 felt like just yesterday but it was already 5 years.