re: #76 Love-Child of Cassandra and Sisyphus

There was bad news when I was growing up:

1) Vietnam war was raging;
2) duck and cover;
3) assassinations, riots, etc.

And the list goes on.

But I do not remember being anxious over any of those.

Because they were distant.

They were not in my face.

My TV watching had some very positive ideas about the future (e.g. Star Trek.)

One emotional state is very much influence by those around us, and by what we feed ourselves.

OK so A. maybe you should have been anxious about those things, especially the duck and cover drills, and B. this seems like casting the problem as one of messaging and one’s exposure to the media environment instead of young people very much having the very concept of a viable future and livable planet stolen from them. There’s no amount of “healthy” media a young person can feed themselves to make that go away, in part because ignoring it is actually the most toxic response possible. That’s the difference between then and now, and why the bad news now is inescapable. Because any attempt to escape it now only fuels and empowers its worst drivers.