This summer, we'll be entering Year 5 of the Great Downpression. While the tape-worms of Wall Street get to refinance at 0.25% rates of interest and haul in record bonuses, the real economy continues to go to hell. America's youth are being pulverized by a catastrophic job market:
And things are no better for us middle-aged graduates. I've been applying for positions like mad, and there's nothing out there, absolutely nothing. Sure, a few grads still get that lucky phone call. But the ranks of that blessed pool grow fewer each year.
In my own field, communications, I'm starting to see the telltale signs of impending collapse, which I remember all too well from the meltdown of the humanities in the early 2000s: routine positions are now attracting well over four hundred applications.
Every day, I have to gather all my mental strength to keep going.
Every day, I focus on the one cup of coffee I can afford (soon even this will be a memory).
Every day, I sift through videogames and media I can no longer afford to purchase, trying to keep up-to-date via fansites and fan walk-throughs.
Every day, I focus on my writing and research, trying to quell the hunger pangs of living on one meal a day.
Occasionally I find some gem -- a Kenyan music video, a Russian rap song -- which speaks truth to power, and empowers the truth. And this somehow keeps me going, and inspires me to keep writing these words, these words which are all I have, these words which are unknowable, these words sent to an address unknown, these words which are a life-raft.
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