Comment by hn_acc1

I also think part of the realization is that as you grow up, the world was "whitewashed" for you when you were younger. Your parents took care of going to the DMV, or taking you to the dentist and paying / using insurance, and making sure there was someone to drive you there.

Now, you're the parent, and you have to figure out if you can drive your child, make sure they're covered by insurance, make sure you can pay the dentist if your insurance is maxed out for the year, heck, just in the last year, find a new dentist because the one you had for 20 years switched to "not taking Delta" and suddenly wants you to pay $500/checkup instead of previous $0, etc. And if you can't pay, well.. sucks to be you..

I'm in my 50s, and I kind of understand this attitude, and I also understand why people get cynical. I moved to the US due to finding someone to marry online (from Canada), and while I had heard some stories of how bad the US was, I felt like I had my eyes open going in, knew about insurance, etc. I never figured I'd have to worry about the government going openly hostile, somehow embracing Russia AND Nazis at the same time, etc - I always figured things would slowly improve over time (especially when Obama was elected), not get drastically worse. So I've stopped caring as much - during Covid, I canceled several charities we used to donate to regularly - suddenly, after feeling quite secure financially (not rich, but ok), I didn't feel that way anymore. I got laid off the day after my 50th birthday and after transferring to another position in the same company, again 1.5 years later and I stopped donating to the local food bank where I was employed. Finally found a job ~1 year later - actually with better pay, but less WFH and it's hard to go back.

Eventually life gets to you. Looking around, there are a whole lot of people who care greatly - but what they care about is hurting specific groups of "others" in specific ways.. Or in grifting as much $$ as possible. So now I don't care as much. I just want the ants to stop crawling into the house and the neighborhood dog to stop barking at night so I can sleep. Because I'm (*&@#$ TIRED.