Categories
Living

Notes on the End of the World

The last time the world was ending, I started this website to write about the surrealness of waiting out the apocalypse amidst daily Amazon deliveries. And about the jarring compartmentalism of zoom meetings and email while multi-tasking a chronic panic attack. (Starting a new website has historically been my panic-driven, fight or flight response to many of life’s most stressful moments.)

I guess the end of the world is like a fireworks show finale. Just when you think the explosions are over, a new display erupts in the smoke.

As we’re faced with — well, here you can imagine I’m gesturing at the world — there’s much this new apocalypse shares with the previous ones: email, meetings, deadlines, mortgage payments.

I felt something new last night though, as TikTok began glitching and eventually stopped working entirely. It was that feeling you get in your basement late at night when everything’s dark and you hear a noise and in an instant, safety and comfort (that you took for granted so much that you didn’t realize you were feeling it) vanishes. One moment, you’re secure and unafraid in your own home, and the next you’re in pitch blackness surrounded by ghosts.

In the land of the free and the first amendment and the American dream where anything is possible, the government arbitrarily shut down the medium where 170 Americans get news, express themselves, organize, and make a living. And maybe they’ll let it start back up; maybe everyone will find another space. But it doesn’t feel safe anymore. It feels like maybe it never was.