People seem to love making themselves feel miserable by saying that the world around us is horrible and, therefore, everyone should share their misery. It becomes an addiction in viewing the world in such a morose manner, always needing something to complain about, waiting for the next national catastrophe to hit so they can blame everyone else for how they feel. I get it, life is pretty terrifying and people do shitty things. I don't think, however, that this is a valid justification for being so melodramatic and having such a dismal disposition towards life.
Believe it or not, there is life outside of politics, economics, and whatever else troubles us in our lives. In fact, the world is actually a wondrous, beautiful place to live in when you let yourself take the time to look at it. There are plenty of good, spectacular things to observe about society and about nature that misery addicts refuse to look at because it would dismantle their gloom-and-doom narrative. Hell, our existence here on Earth, which is an astronomical oddity in and of itself, is something to admire and rejoice over when it could all be wiped out in a flash by a meteor we didn't see coming.
Even Anarcho-Capitalists have to tread lightly in not becoming a misery addict, because of how we view the State and it's impact on the world around us. It's healthy to acknowledge that the State prevents us from living our lives to the fullest degree we wish, but to let that acknowledgement transform into an obsession turns a just anger against those that seek to oppress us all into a drug that we have to partake in on a daily basis. It's psychologically-damaging to hyper-focus on how the State hinders us and to seldom marvel at how the free markets triumph in spite of government intervention. We have to celebrate the victories we achieve in life just as often, if not more than, as we mourn the defeats we face in the State gaining more control over what we do.
In this age of media hype and political hysteria, it's very easy to lose sight of things around us that make our lives worth living. It's so horrendously easy to get wrapped up in the latest report of how Donald Trump passed a certain bill, how the Iranians or the North Koreans are engaging in "aggressive posturing" against US, Japanese, or Chinese military forces, and how a political figurehead is involved in some kind of scandal. By getting in a headspace of perpetual negativity, we forget about historical landmarks, festivals, art, music, and all the other things in our society that we should be celebrating.
We forget about that fantastic smell in the air on the first cool day of autumn, how serene the first snowfall of winter looks, the feeling of ecstasy you get when you're having a party on the beach, the feeling of accomplishment and wonder when you climb a mountain, and how enraptured you are when you're reading a good book. It becomes a mire for the mind, trapped by the feelings of depression, hopelessness, and the feeling of helplessness in knowing that all is not alright in the world and there's not a damned thing anyone seems to be doing about it.
It's important to fight the "good fight" whenever you can, but it's important to also live your life to it's fullest potential at every opportunity made available to you. We only have so long to live in this world and, chances are, we aren't going to eliminate all of the evil within the world within our time on this earth. To drive this point home, I'd like to take a quote of Lao Tzu's from the Tao Te Ching:
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