2022 is shaping up to be a grimdark dysphoric hellscape for the ages.

So far this year we’ve had:

• War in Ukraine
• The repeal of Roe vs. Wade and the ensuing loss of bodily autonomy for millions of people in the U.S.A.
• A January 6 commission that showed and told plenty, but doesn’t seem to have moved the needle either in terms of public sentiment or prosecutions.
• A twice-impeached former president, who stole classified documentation on his way out of the White House announced he’s waddling running again in 2024 (possibly to evade prosecution, who knows?)
• Fuel prices, and inflation generally, are skyrocketing
• People are hungry, and cold, and many have been displaced to places that have no homes to offer them
• Global weather has gotten even more messed up with floods and droughts and extreme weather events happening almost constantly
• We’re not remotely on track to do the needful to prevent climate catastrophe
• Even more people have lost money to crypto scammers, and crypto is still not regulated
• Despite claims to the contrary, Covid-19 has not gone away. It’s endemic and it’s still killing people every day
• There have been huge layoffs across tech from chipmakers, to Amazon, to social media
• Related: a shitposting edgelord billionaire bought a social-media site, more than decimated its staff, and plans to run any remaining employees (some of whom are probably only staying to keep their H1B1 visas) ragged
  • He also reinstated suspended accounts from hatemongers like Jordan Peterson and the aforementioned 2024 presidential candidate.
• Just last night, a 22 year old with a rifle, donned body armour, went into a LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado Springs and murdered at least 5 people. Today the media is wringing its collective hands over whether or not this was a hate crime. (Narrator voice: It was, indisputably, a hate crime.)

I don’t know if I’m feeling this way because it’s a cold and dark November afternoon, but this year has been a lot.

I’m sitting here reminding myself that when curious Pandora loosed all the ills upon the world, the one thing that remained was hope.

And my hope comes from people.

Not the loud people on the birdsite claiming to be oppressed by minorities, or the ones saying (in public, on various forms of media) that they have been cancelled because of this thing called “consequences”, nope. Those people are mostly beyond help.

It’s the fact that a generation is now growing up that sees a potential future the rest of us couldn’t see.

They’ve grown up with more rights, with information at their fingertips, and a global peer group that was beyond my imagination at their age.

When I was a teenager, I just wanted it not to be illegal to be gay, or trans. I wanted people to stop using the law as a way to continually marginalize already-marginalized people.

I wanted those of us with wombs to have as much control over our own bodily autonomy as the men who seemed to always hold their thumbs on the scales of justice.

My imagination was constrained by those great old Irish social weapons of shame and fear.

Today, a young person living in a state or a country where books are being banned, can log on to the internet and find others to talk to, to learn from.

Today, parents of trans kids will move across states in America to keep their access to gender-confirming care for those kids.

Today, there are films, and TV shows, and videogames and you tube channels that represent more than able-bodied, cis-het, white protagonists. There is representation, and a lot of it is even joyful.

As much as the angry loudmouth lawmakers try to change the world back to some 1950’s idyll where the “men” work (and make laws) and the “women” stay at home, minding the kids (and choking down Valium), there are vast swathes of people who disagree with them.

There are millions of people who know that rights are not pie. That giving someone else rights doesn’t mean you have fewer, it means everyone gets more.

There are people out there who know that there’s something intrinsically worrisome about someone who feels the need to be seen as “superior” to anyone else.

There are lots of people who will not punch down, not just because we know what it feels like to be punched.

There are countless thoughtful and kind humans in the world who each make a difference in their own way, every single day.

The world is far from perfect, but if we can see this hellish year as the screeching death throes of a system that is running out of power, if we can remember that they are screaming because they are terrified about imminently losing power, then we can look to the good people around us, take their hands, and move forward with hope and purpose.