This was before the Call of Duty militia stormed the Capitol, so there are probably far more things to write about withholding the anxieties of the adult world, but there are other essays for that.

I feel bad letting this space lay fallow for months, but on the other hand I am typing this very post on my phone while a two month old sleeps on my chest. I don’t get into my personal life much on this site, mostly because it isn’t that interesting. However, this massive of a life change feels important enough to break away from navel gazing and pontificating far above my intellectual weight class.

It’s a new year, which makes for our big cultural reset. It’s my headspace being rewired in real time that has interested me over the last few months. Being a tad older than most people having their first kid, I have a real sense of how drastically different facets of my thinking are changing. It’s remarkable how quickly anxiety can creep in from random directions. It’s like you have a toothache your carefully trying to avoid touching, but it’s adorable and sitting next to you on the couch. The toothache cares not for your anxiety, or tortured metaphor, it’s time to eat and change a diaper.

I’ll avoid most of the cliches about newfound acceptance of bodily fluids, and just say it and sleep deprivation come in as a guaranteed part of the ride. As much as the current stage of my kid’s life needs constant attention, this is the stage that worries me the least. Overcoming my natural cynicism that the future is fucked was just the price of admission, but it’s likely the fount of anxiety that I have.

I am not sure that the people in charge aren’t going to lean into the skid and throw us all off the cliff. If this why everyone weird dad becomes history dad? They’re studying up on all the old Apocalypses to find a bit of comfort in the roiling anxiety that your kid is entering a world run by idiots and assholes. Lean too hard into it and you’re becoming a weird prepper, filling the basement with tins of food and loads of guns.

The last year seemed to be proof there isn’t anyone at the wheel. The institutions around the world seemed unable to persuade almost anybody to act correctly, while others seized the opportunity to sow disinformation for cash and political gain. We’ve lived through a solid decade of the lowest common demons dominating every aspect of the discourse. A generation of epistemological terrorism culminating in making every idiot that can make an image macro a news source.

I find myself having to rely on hope for comfort, which is by far the biggest change to my brain. While it’s distressing to have to rely on something so nebulous to keep my brain from collapsing under the weight of having doomed this poor kid to a world full of morons with fondle slabs in their pockets telling them vaccines have microchips in them.

As a kid the inscrutable problems of adults filled me with weird fears like recurring nightmares of nuclear Armageddon. So, I think that most of the above is moot in the end. Projecting your fears into the next generation is half the reason we are in this mess.