I am becoming more and more certain that a big part of why the world is going insane is due to the lack of challenge for survival in some nations around the world. I suspect we at some level need challenge, we have this need to feel like we are doing something with our lives.

What if you have running water, you have electricity, you have food, and you have shelter if you truly want it? What if you do not actually have to work to get these things? What if the system simply gives them to you and other benefits as long as you check in with the offices designed to provide you these things?

You have all the requirements for survival. No true struggle required there. In fact, in some of these areas you may be doing better than people that actually have to work to have these things.

I know that one year my family of 6 and I in the 90s survived on $19K for the year. That was a hard year. It was a year we were on food stamps (or whatever it is called). Prior to needing to go on this assistance we usually spent $300 or so a month on groceries and had become very skilled at making that money buy a lot. For food assistance I recall them giving us over $700. When we shopped we didn't need that much. We found ourselves spending it on things that were exotic by our standards just to use it up. In fact, to this day that is probably the best my family has ever eaten in terms of food. As soon as we were off food stamps we went back to spending $300-$400 per month on food. We had zero need for that excess.

Yet how many people live on that assistance all of the time? Do you think they even are aware of how much more they get for food than so many people that do not get such assistance?

That is just food. I know people that have had housing allotments essentially pay for their rent in an apartment. Medical is covered.

Most of these programs require you have at least a part time job or can show that you are actively seeking work. This is fairly simple to game. It doesn't say anything about keeping a job for example. If you get a job and are working it you can look for any excuse to quit that job. Once that occurs you are back in the seeking mode.

This became even worse in the wake of the lockdowns.

Unemployment benefits pay more than going back to work. Many people are refusing to return to work because they are doing better financially thanks to these benefits than when they were working.

They likely call themselves poor. They say how hard they have it. They likely even believe the stories they tell.

Yet if you are not worried about how you are going to get your next meal, keep your house, etc. what motivates you?

In the grand scheme of things if you so choose you don't have to do much of anything and you'll survive. At least for now. (this system will likely implode)

Many times in history great innovation and actions were done to insure or better survival. People did things. It wasn't always motivated by this but it is a large factor in life.

What do you do when there is no impetus for this type of survival?

Do you still have that desire to leave your mark, to be someone, to do something?

Do you look around for something YOU can do?

Do you become hyper alert to the same techniques you can use to quit any job?

Do you look for anything no matter how trivial and insignificant it may be and point it out, exaggerate it, and treat it like a crisis?

I personally think this is happening at a large scale.

I suspect a lot of people that have no idea what struggle truly means need to feel like they are doing something so they are turning things that in the grand scheme of life are "meaningless" into huge end of the world type of scenarios.

Examples

Pronouns. If someone uses the wrong pronoun do you have less food? Is your house gone? Are you bleeding and lying on the ground? I can answer these myself they were rhetorical questions. The answer to all of those is no.

Yet they are treated like assault and battery. Fire the person that used the wrong pronoun. End their career. Debank them and no longer give them access to their credit cards. Ostracize them. All done over a little word that is truly trivial in the grand scheme of things. Yet the person that was able to wield the weaponized affront to pronouns can feel momentarily like they did something. They are a warrior. They are fighting the good fight.

The fight to make sure that little generic words used in certain places within sentence structures be treated like the truly important things in society they are... If you haven't been able to detect my dripping sarcasm. It is there. I am throwing it all over the place at the moment because I consider this one of the most stupid things our society is doing at the moment. To be clear it is only ONE. There are so many... so many.

Each day I think I've seen something peak stupid someone seeking to make a name for themselves proves my thought incorrect.

(insert)phobe The looking for an excuse to call someone some kind of phobe as in someone with a phobia or fear has become a common tactic as well. Seeking to find a battle to fight. First you must find an enemy. When your life is easy compared to that of your ancestors and you can't find enemies what can you do. You want to fight and end up in Valhalla... unless it is a real fight. That is too much work. You can however point at people and call them a transphobe, homophobe, islamophobe, etc. Then you can start lobbing those other weapons in your arsenal. Racist, Chauvinist, Nazi, Fascist, etc. Mostly words you likely don't know the true meaning of but in the battle you are in whether you know doesn't matter. You are standing in your proverbial shield wall side by side with people and you are fighting phobes.

Words - Do I truly need to explain the "words are violence" nonsense at this point or can you already see it for yourself? This one would be so easy to lay to rest if they would go along with it but that is unlikely because then they'd have to do something and risk actual violence. Tell them that both sides need to agree they will not press charges. It is voluntary. It is a duel. They can use words, while you use your fists. According to them they are both violence.

When people say words are violence which is contemptable I immediately start thinking "Oh no they worded me" in a truly sarcastic and whiny voice.

We have a problem

This is unsustainable. This could be an aspect of something people have been calling the Fourth Turning for some time. It basically boils down to generations being removed from strife and struggle of their ancestors eventually walk along the path towards their own self destruction. In the process of seeking to make a name for themselves without being in any danger or true risk they unknowingly push for the destruction of society.

A great conflict usually occurs. Those that survive are once again survivors and their REALITY visual and mental prescription has been properly adjusted. They are the survivors. They know what the truth of things is. Their children will know as well because they will have lived through parts of it or heard the stories first hand from their parents. Their grand children will know through the stories. By the time their great grand children are around the cycle of things being easier may be present again. They may be clueless to the truth.

It seems like a great strife historically occurs around every 80 years plus or minus a few decades. The number 80 is what people writing about the fourth turning generally point out.

The fourth turning to me sounds like a wheel...

A wheel that is repeating the same trip over and over again.

Can we turn the wheel so that it goes somewhere else or are we doomed to continually repeat this process?

(Image Source: dailystar.co.uk)