I really enjoyed reading this article, particularly as a millennial who is constantly surprised she is an adult. However, I am still trying to figure out how the last four generations have made the world worse and worse? Like, compared to what? Are you also weirdly rose-colored about the Greatest Generation and their very kempt lawns?

Like, is it worse than when we thought owning people was ok? Or when we didn’t know about germ theory, or hadn’t invented anesthetics? Or was it worse when, as a woman, you had to choose between having no social status or security OR getting married and putting your life on the line every 1-2 years for 25 years when you got pregnant?

My theory about how many of us believe we live in a dumpster heap worse than any other time is that in the past four generations, the main thing that’s changed is that humans more and more believe the telos of life is to reduce human (or at least their own) suffering as much as possible, as opposed to building the emotional, spiritual and community resources to endure it. Therefore, when something bad happens (like a yearlong pandemic, which I have hated! But is not worse than what most of humanity has faced for millennia) we have very little reserves to deal with it. In fact, we are shocked that there might be forces outside our control that might get in the way of our individualistic actualization plans.

I’m all for reducing human suffering, particularly when it’s our own dumb policies and inhumane structures that cause it. That’s our obligation, that’s how we love our neighbor. But we seem to have lost some sort of resilience or reserve to face it when it comes. It’s like we’ve truly tricked ourselves into believing that hardship is beneath us, as opposed to facing it as an intrinsic part of the human condition.

Say what you will about Christians (and I could say a lot), this is one of the reasons they really shine at hospital bedsides. It’s because they have a theology of suffering, of death, and of hope; a clear-eyed-ness about the reality of suffering; a reason for living beyond simply the reduction of one’s own suffering (the alignment of ourselves with and the service of those who suffer); and community tools and rituals to see each other through suffering. I haven’t been in a lot of hospitals with people of other religions, but I imagine it is similar.

So I guess what I’m saying is, our time in history isn’t worse than others. I do think there’s something uniquely existential about climate change, but then again having your village razed by Vikings or a continent's worth of culture destroyed by colonialists were also existential realities.

Doom has always been coming, present even -- if not in our lifestyle at the very least in our mortality. How do we stop the shock when it happens, and develop the character and moral strength to face it? Unfortunately, I think it might take living through things like pandemics (I’m not sure -- I’m a very sensitive millennial and resent COVID deeply :) ).

PS If you want to read about how suffering can shape human endurance and character, I suggest John Lewis’ Across That Bridge.