The Parking lot

You’ll never be an astronaut
You’ll never lay your hands on the treasure
You’re nothing but an afterthought
The sooner you get it, the better

Quite poignant. Now if you are a fan of the UK band Architects, you will recognize this from their song “Brain Dead” (feat. House of Protection), off of their 2025 album The Sky, The Earth and All Between. If you have never heard of the band Architects, I highly recommend checking them out. But that is deviating from the topic. How the hell did we get here? We work more than we ever have before, with the highest wage disparity the world has ever seen, to purchase fewer groceries than yesterday. Are we all dragging our feet from day to day, hoping we eventually trip and break our necks so we can forget our existence? Damn, that’s bleak. But it feels like every time you turn on the news, something even worse has happened than the day before, leaving you in an endless cycle of doom scrolling and panic attacks. How do we break out?

Now the easy response is to say “turn it off”. Be it your phone, television, or closing your eyes so you can read the newspaper headlines. But that answer is such a cop out, since that doesn’t stop your coworkers, family, or friends from berating you with updates, especially if it impacts you or them directly (While we maybe want to tune our coworkers and some family members out, it would be a dick move to tune out your friends. They care about you). And if the news is important to you and your loved ones, don’t you want to be informed in case something happens? Even if it is a detriment to your mental health, isn’t it better to be informed rather than blindsided?

I imagine at this point, if you haven’t already left this blog, you are screaming at your screen for me to give you the answer for how in the hell you are supposed to “find bliss in the apocalypse”? Fine, here it is:

Create.

Lose yourself in the world of creation. We all have hobbies. Or maybe there is something on your bucket list. Or maybe a random person came up to you after you ordered food at a restaurant and they said that your voice was perfect for radio. Whatever it may be, from writing a novel that redefines the science fiction genre, to fixing the rules to your favorite board game, let your mind wander. And get silly! There aren’t any rules. No one is going to burst down your front door as you add the last paint stroke to your grand masterpiece and tear it from your easel. The less pressure you put on yourself, the easier it will be to start.

When I left my job at the end of 2023 for mental health reasons, I had no idea who I was or what I wanted from life. I was completely drained and truly thought that if this was all there was to life, what was the point of living? Luckily I was able to pull myself from that dark place, but it spurred me to think about the times I was truly happy and when it felt like there was a meaning to life. And as Gen-Z of me to say it, I thought back to the time I was streaming on twitch for an average of 2 viewers and making shitty little YouTube videos that were lucky to make it past 10 views. Those didn’t pay the bills, but the fact that I was able to do something other than maximize profits for shareholders, it felt good to make something completely on my own, and for no one else.

The mistake I made was trying to monetize everything and chase the toxic hustle culture. The grass is always greener, and while at the time it sounded amazing to have my full time job be content creation (and if I am being honest, I still dream about it), the second you take something from a hobby and try to turn it into a source of income, you are going to ruin it. The world is over saturated with content and the biggest commodity is someone’s time. Unless you get lucky, you probably won’t be get much of anyone’s time.

So forget about trying to make money from your creation. Cut yourself some slack. It doesn’t matter if you are bad at it, or if it takes you twice as long to do something as someone else. Creating is for no one other than you. Creating is a way for you to escape from reality, even if it is only for a few minutes. If you want to share it with people, you can, but don’t feel forced to “do it for the gram”, that defeats the purpose of what we are trying to do.

That is the whole point of this blog you are currently consuming. I want to create something for me. Will I talk about software engineering? Sure. Will I talk about music? Absolutely. Will this be the only post? Hopefully not. But whatever happens with this, I know that I am doing it because I want to create something and escape from the grim reality that is unfolding around us.

So how in the hell are you supposed to find bliss in the apocalypse? Create. Allow yourself to escape into a world only you have the keys to. And maybe, just maybe, you might be able to carve a small bit of bliss within your life.