I stumbled upon this insightful comment in Reddit and I think you might benefit from it [1]: -- hi OP. Hey i am 66 (I still can't believe that number, haha. Lu

I stumbled upon this insightful comment in Reddit and I think you might benefit from it [1]: -- hi OP. Hey i am 66 (I still can't believe that number, haha. Luckily I am still super healthy). I was in 2nd grade when president Kennedy was shot in the head, live on national television. His brain flew out into his wife's lap. It set off a wave of assassinations (president's brother, MLK, etc). I grew up knowing that the yellow and black triangles symbol meant "fallout shelter" and we were supposed to go there in case of nuclear attack. We did "duck and cover" drills in elementary school. Hide under your desks. Once, they sent us home with pamphlets about nuclear attack preparation. OK don't laugh, the pamphlet said "wear loose white clothing in case of nuclear detonation. Don't look directly at the explosion." They flew warplanes overhead once per week after bedtime, faster than the speed of sound, and we would hear the "sonic boom" which scared the crap out of me. It rattled the windows, shook the house. People were truly panicked, using their life savings to dig holes in their backyard, and building and equipping "bomb shelters" to try to survive nuclear fallout. It didn't feel like that stuff was ever resolved, it just faded from attention, it was buried by other distractions both negative and positive. Wasn't too much later the government had a giant meltdown that scared the crap out of everyone. It was right as I came of voting age, haha! Oh my god. Watergate, it was called. Huge corruption scandal, everyone was just breathless with shock and disgust and fear. At that time people around me trusted the government to be solid enough to remain (seemingly) just, and we learned it could seemingly recover, at least back then. Around this time we were also in a totally illegal war, and we had a freaking lottery to decide which 18-year-olds would be forced to go fight the Viet Cong in the jungles of southeast asia. High school grads coming back in body bags, kids running away to Canada to avoid getting roped into the army. And hippies happened, communes, free love, weed -- all of which caused the older ones to lose their minds because society looked to them to be coming apart. Some of us died. Most of us lived. You are living the stories you will tell young people, when its your turn to comfort them. None of this is to minimize what you are sensing around you! You are awake and aware, you are not overreacting. I am so sorry. I wish I could just listen to you for a couple hours. You are having one of those wakeup moments. We all will be each having our own wakeup moments. Our job is to comfort each other when we feel like this. We will all adapt and do our human best to cope with whats coming. Help each other not freeze in place, but take the most intelligent and resourceful steps we can muster. The system is unable to help, its unreliable -- [1] https://old.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/v9l0j6/im_only_20_has_the_world_always_felt_like_this/ibyb344/ https://old.reddit.com/r/NoStupidQuestions/comments/v9l0j6/i...