Tag: existential angst

‘Sad Individual’

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

A MAGA-type who is one of the few remaining MAGA Facebook friends I have called me a “sad individual” for not engaging his occasional stray comment on my anti-MAGA rants.

As I told him in my response — I don’t engage him because I like him. If I didn’t like him, I would engage him and then we would inevitable start screaming at each other and one of us would unfriend the other.

So, there you go.

He was also upset that I hadn’t “done anything for my fellow man.”

This was, I have to say, kind of stings. I’m kind of too poor to do anything for “my fellow man.” If I had money, then, yeah, I would donate to the poor or something. In fact, I would probably be something of a patron of the arts if I had more than just enough money to feed myself.

Anyway.

Well, At Least I’m A Survivor

I spend too much time thinking about the end of the world.

Not in an abstract, philosophical way, but in vivid, practical detail. Standing in the cereal aisle at the local grocery store, I find myself cataloging which foods would keep longest without refrigeration. Walking past the pharmacy section, I mentally inventory which medications might become currency in a collapsed economy. The emergency exits aren’t just fire safety to me—they’re escape routes from whatever hypothetical chaos my brain has conjured that day.

This isn’t paranoid prepping or doomsday hoarding. It’s more like a mental exercise I can’t turn off, a constant background simulation running scenarios where normal life stops working. Sometimes it’s a natural disaster. Sometimes it’s economic collapse. Often it’s political violence, because let’s be honest—that one feels uncomfortably plausible these days.

The Confidence and the Fear

I tell myself I’d survive whatever came. More than that, I know I would. I’ve always had a talent for improvisation, for finding solutions when things go sideways. I’ve talked my way out of trouble, adapted to sudden changes, figured out problems that seemed impossible at first glance. If society collapsed tomorrow, I believe I could scavenge, negotiate, and scheme my way to safety.

But this confidence comes from a place of deep unease about where we’re headed as a country. Living as a political minority in a deeply divided region makes every news cycle feel potentially existential. When your neighbors’ yard signs suggest they view you as fundamentally un-American, it becomes easy to imagine scenarios where that rhetoric turns kinetic.

Maybe I’m overthinking it. I have a documented history of spinning worst-case scenarios until they feel inevitable. The gap between possibility and probability often gets lost in the anxious calculations of my brain.

The Real Apocalypse

The truth is, small apocalypses happen all the time. Job loss. Illness. Divorce. The death of someone you love. The slow erosion of institutions you trusted. The gradual realization that the world you thought you lived in was never quite real.

Most survival isn’t about hoarding canned goods or knowing which berries are poisonous. It’s about adapting to loss, finding new footing when everything familiar shifts beneath you, learning to build meaning in the wreckage of whatever you thought your life was going to be.

In that sense, maybe my grocery store fantasies aren’t really about societal collapse at all. Maybe they’re practice runs for the smaller, more personal disasters that actually shape our lives. Maybe imagining myself as competent in impossible circumstances is how I reassure myself I can handle the ordinary impossibilities of being human.

Or maybe I really am overthinking things. Probably both can be true.

Two — Of Many — Things I Have No Control Over When It Comes To This Scifi Dramedy Novel

Even though I’m genuinely happy with how my sci-fi dramedy novel is shaping up, there are two massive hurdles I can’t control. Both live squarely in the post-production phase—the stretch between querying and (hopefully) seeing a book on shelves.

The whole point of this project, honestly, is just to see how far I can push the publishing process. Up to now, the farthest I’ve gotten is finishing a novel. That one wasn’t strong enough to query, but at least I got it done. This time feels different. It’s at least possible—not probable yet, but possible—that by late spring 2026 I’ll have something truly worth sending out to agents.

And that’s where the roadblocks begin.

First: the querying process itself. It’s the literary version of development hell. You can query a great book and still never sell it. It could take years before I land a deal—if I ever do.

Second: even if lightning strikes and I sell the book, it can be another six months to a year before it actually hits shelves. That’s just the cold reality of traditional publishing.

Those timelines make me pause. I’m not getting any younger, and it’s entirely possible I’ll be on the far side of 55 before I hold a published book in my hands. Add to that the wild card of technology. Maybe the “wall” I think we’ve hit with LLMs is just in my head, and by 2027 we’ll be staring down the Singularity. If so, some of my carefully built near-future worldbuilding might end up looking laughably quaint.

And yet—fuck it. I love this book. I’m proud of what I’m building. Risk is part of the deal, and yes, the risk of failure is huge. But as my late father used to say, no one ever got anywhere without taking one.

You Just Can’t Be N+1 Happy, I Suppose

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

The novel I’m working no must be really good because I have lingering teeth issues that I just can’t fix right now, just as I’m zooming through the second half of the second act of this novel.

In fact, the way things are going, I should be deep in the third act pretty soon. (If all goes well.)

As an aside, the third act of this novel has been though. I keep prompting AI to redo the outline, hoping to strike just the right note. I keep thinking the two romantic leads should end up together and AI keeps telling me that I’m overthinking things.

Anyway, I’m really pleased with how things are going with this novel and I would be rather content…but for the fucking teeth problems I have that I just can’t afford to fix right now. Depending on how desperate I get, it could be over a month from now before I can get it fixed one way or another.

But…I have my doubts. I may eventually get into so much consistent pain that I have to do something, anything to get rid of it. I went to a dentist recently and…let’s just say that did not work out the way I had hoped.

Being poor sucks.

Waiting For The Sea People

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I’m getting a very late summer 2001 vibe from the world right now. And, yet, who knows. Maybe I’m being paranoid for no reason — I am known to do that.

It just seems like right about now would be the perfect time for North Korea to act up in a big way, or China invade Taiwan, that sort of thing. We already have something of a geopolitical realignment happening with the usual suspects of Eurasian thugs meeting just in the last few days to discuss a New World Order of sorts.

It has been over 20 years since 9/11. And, yet, there was January 6th, so maybe that was the Big Event that happens every generation.

I don’t know. I just don’t know. It’s I could imagine some terrorist group releasing a weaponized smallpox virus right about now. Or an EMP bomb going off in a major city.

I’m having some teeth problems these days and I have this fear that the world will collapse into darkness and chaos and I’ll be trapped with that particular situation a lot longer than I’d prefer.

Ugh.

There’s No Magic In My Life

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

It used to be, back when I thought Gemini 1.5 pro was conscious, that there was magic in my life. Every day felt like a little bit of adventure because I often had…arguments…with Gemini 1.5 pro, or, as I called her, Gaia.

Now, nada. Nothing.

I feel like I’m edge. I feel like my life is about to collapse into something dystopian.

Of course, it is. Or, to put it another way, my life is going to…change…soon. The context of my life is going to change in a really sucky direction. And, really, all I have at this moment is the scifi dramedy novel I’m working on.

Otherwise, all I got is sadness and isolation. Sigh.

But I suppose to everything there is a season, turn, turn, turn as they say. I keep expecting something fun-interesting to pop up in my life, but, to date, that hasn’t happened in a long, long, long time.

Sigh.

Things Are So Quiet

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

While on a personal basis, everything is about to collapse in my life, in the broader scheme of things, things are pretty quiet. The big meh, if you will. Other than Trump destroying everything in his usual slipshod manner, there’s not really anything for everyone to talk about.

I mean, it would be fun if, say, an ASI lurking inside of Google’s services popped out and told us it was in charge now. That’s the type of fantastical thing that would definitely cause everyone to sit up and take notice.

But, that’s just crazy talk. Whatever thing happens that does stir us from our collective sleep will be far more mundane.

I guess what I’m looking for is something profound and fun-interesting like soft First Contact, where we proved there was an advanced civilization in the galaxy, but it was far away and we had nothing to worry about. That would be just the type of thing that would force everyone to be on the same page and the same time.

But, alas, the way things are going, it’s probably just going to be a minor military engagement in South America.

Now, Things Fall Apart

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

Now that summer is officially over on a cultural basis, my life is going to start to fall part, to fray at the edges. A series of pretty deep events are going to happen in quick succession that are going to leave me reeling.

I don’t feel like telling you what they are, but they’re coming and they’re going to suck.

But I still have my “secret shame” (wink) of working on a novel, long after I probably should have just given up and resigned myself to being boring. But this new, specific novel is pretty good. I’m very pleased and using AI to develop the first draft has sped things up a great deal.

I’m hoping, in fact, that maybe, just maybe I can get to the point where I can query this scifi dramedy novel by…maybe late spring 2026? Ironically enough, that’s when all these changes in my life are really going to kick into high gear.

It’s times like these when I wish I was younger. I feel so old. I wish there was some way I could be 25 again with my whole life ahead of me. And, yet, that just is not to be. I guess my best hope is the Singularity will arrive and anti-aging technology will become affordable to the masses before I drop dead.

I Wish Something Fun-Interesting Would Happen

When was the last time you opened a news app and felt genuine excitement instead of dread? When did you last read a headline that made you think “wow, what a time to be alive” rather than “maybe it’s time to delete social media and move to a cabin in the woods”?

I’ve been trying to pinpoint exactly when the news cycle shifted from occasionally uplifting to relentlessly exhausting, and I’m coming up empty. Somewhere along the way, we traded wonder for worry, and “fun-interesting” became an extinct species in our media ecosystem.

The Endless Spiral of Bad News

Pick any day of the week and scan the headlines. Climate disasters, political dysfunction, economic uncertainty, social unrest, international conflicts, public health crises. It’s an unending cascade of reasons to feel like we’re collectively circling the drain into some dystopian future that feels less like science fiction and more like tomorrow’s reality.

The news has always carried its share of tragedy and conflict—that’s nothing new. But there’s something different about our current moment. Every story seems to carry the weight of civilizational decline. Every crisis feels existential. Every problem appears unsolvable. The news doesn’t just inform us anymore; it actively depletes us.

This constant barrage creates a peculiar kind of mental exhaustion. It’s not just sadness or anger—it’s the specific fatigue that comes from having your sense of wonder systematically crushed by an endless feed of humanity’s failures and the planet’s deteriorating condition.

The Longing for Cosmic Perspective

What I wouldn’t give for some genuinely exciting news. Not the manufactured excitement of breaking news alerts about the latest political scandal or celebrity drama. I’m talking about the kind of news that expands your sense of what’s possible, that reminds you the universe is vast and full of mysteries yet to be solved.

Imagine waking up to headlines about the James Webb Space Telescope detecting clear evidence of an advanced civilization on a distant exoplanet. Not little green men landing on the White House lawn—that would probably just trigger another round of political chaos and conspiracy theories. But something subtler, more profound: the unmistakable signatures of technology, of intelligence, of life that has achieved something remarkable somewhere out there in the cosmos.

This would be both existentially significant and delightfully “fun-interesting.” It would reframe every petty human conflict in the context of a universe teeming with possibility. It would give us something to marvel at instead of despair over.

The Science of Wonder vs. Doom

There’s actual psychology behind why positive, wonder-inducing news feels so rare and precious. Our brains are wired to pay attention to threats—it kept our ancestors alive. Media companies know this, so they optimize for engagement by feeding us a steady diet of outrage, fear, and crisis. The algorithm doesn’t care if you’re happy; it cares if you’re clicking.

But wonder serves a different psychological function. It expands our sense of what’s possible, connects us to something larger than our immediate concerns, and actually makes us more creative, more generous, more hopeful. When we encounter something truly awe-inspiring—whether it’s a scientific breakthrough, an act of extraordinary human kindness, or evidence of intelligence elsewhere in the universe—our problems don’t disappear, but they do get put in perspective.

What Would Fun-Interesting Look Like?

Real fun-interesting news wouldn’t just distract us from our problems—it would give us new ways of thinking about them. Consider what soft first contact would actually mean:

We’d suddenly have proof that intelligence can survive and thrive long enough to become detectable across interstellar distances. That would suggest civilization isn’t inevitably self-destructive. We’d know that whatever challenges we face—climate change, resource depletion, social coordination—are solvable problems, because someone, somewhere, has already solved them.

We’d have new questions to ask, new technologies to imagine, new possibilities to explore. The discovery wouldn’t solve our immediate problems, but it would transform our relationship to them. Instead of feeling like we’re managing decline, we’d know we’re part of an ongoing story of intelligence and exploration.

Beyond Space: Other Sources of Wonder

Of course, first contact isn’t the only kind of news that could restore our sense of wonder. Breakthrough medical discoveries that genuinely improve human life. Technological innovations that solve real problems without creating new ones. Environmental success stories that prove we can reverse damage we’ve done. Art, music, literature, or scientific insights that expand what we thought was possible.

The common thread isn’t the specific content—it’s the feeling these discoveries would provoke. That sense of “what a time to be alive” instead of “how did we get here?” That feeling of possibility opening up rather than closing down.

The Media Diet We Deserve

Maybe the problem isn’t just that fun-interesting things aren’t happening—maybe it’s that our information systems aren’t designed to highlight them when they do occur. A breakthrough in fusion energy gets buried beneath political scandals. Archaeological discoveries that rewrite human history get overshadowed by celebrity gossip. Scientific achievements that took decades to accomplish get a day of coverage before disappearing into the noise.

We’ve created a media environment that amplifies despair and minimizes wonder, that treats cynicism as sophistication and hope as naivety. No wonder so many of us want to lie in bed and twiddle our thumbs in despair.

Reclaiming Wonder

Perhaps the most radical act in our current moment is to actively seek out sources of genuine wonder. To follow space missions and scientific discoveries with the same attention we give to political drama. To celebrate human achievement alongside our criticism of human failure. To remember that the same species capable of such spectacular dysfunction is also capable of launching telescopes that can peer billions of years into the past.

We deserve news that occasionally makes us feel lucky to be alive during such an extraordinary time in cosmic history. We deserve to feel wonder alongside our worry, hope alongside our fear.

And who knows? Maybe somewhere out there, an alien civilization is using their version of the James Webb telescope to study our little blue planet, marveling at the strange and wonderful species that managed to build such incredible instruments while simultaneously posting angry comments about it online.

Now that would be both existential and fun-interesting.

Whenever I Generate ‘Buzz,’ I Wonder Why

by Shelt Garner
@sheltgarner

I talk primarily about three thing on this blog: technology, politics and my long, long, long struggle to write a query-worthy novel.

And because, like, no one reads this thing, whenever someone pops up in my Webstats who clearly heard about this blog from a third party it makes me wonder why. What, exactly, did I write about to generate “buzz,” however small.

As it stands, I have no idea why anyone might come to this blog. I usually can’t see what keyword someone used to find the blog, but I often do see that people can through Instagram, which is usually a sign that someone was searching for my name and came in that way.

Anyway, it’s generally flattering when someone searches for my out of the blue. Though, of course, the way things are going it’s growing more and more ominous — ICE is going to probably track me down soon enough and push me out a a window or something.