When I was a teenager in the 90s, I used to go to this under-18s nightclub that was on once a fortnight. It ran from 1996-1999, but I went a few times from 1997-1998. I still remember how fun and exciting it was and how I used to look forward to it. I just came across a webpage about how it closed down in 1999 and in 2019 they had a 20 year reunion night, where everyone who’d gone as a teenager came wearing 90s clothes and relived the experience. At first I was so crushed and disappointed that I hadn’t known about it, but then thought with my illness and disability I wouldn’t have been able to go anyway (plus the fact that I am too embarrassed to go anywhere “nice” due to the fact I look hideous since getting cancer and having treatment).

But then I realised it would have been pointless to go anyway. The whole reason it was so enjoyable as a teenager was because I still had hope for the future, although my childhood hadn’t been easy, I wasn’t crushed by all the disappointments and stress of life yet, I still believed things would improve and I’d have a shot at a decent future. Now I know nothing will ever improve for me and there is nothing to look forward to, I can never again get into the right mental state to truly enjoy anything like I could in the 90s. Even on my best day now, the neverending undercurrent of pain, sickness, disability, poverty, disappointment and hopelessness is always there and overshadows everything else. I finally realised why I’ve been unable to truly enjoy anything at all in so long.

I understand now why so many people online talk about how their teenage years were the best time. I see posts online where people say things like “2010 was the best time, I was leaving school and having so much fun,” or whatever and I would think “2010? What was so good about that?” Or older people saying “The 60s/70s were the best time, I had the time of my life then!” And I’d think of all the problems of the era, from women not being allowed to have bank accounts, marital gr@pe being legal and segregation, and I’d think “Really? Your husband could assault you any time he liked and you had to ask his permission to use the bank but you think it was the best time?”

Well now I get it. IMO, the 90s and early 00s were the best time because that’s when I felt the best and actually got some enjoyment out of life. There’s no concrete reality, there will never be any consensus, it’s all brainwaves and brain chemicals and inner experience. But I do think it means humans could come close to achieving a utopian society if there was the will to do so. We could structure society in such a way that everyone got decent food that would power their brains properly - studies show diet can dramatically affect depression/stress/anxiety levels and mental illness:

https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychology/articles/10.3389/fpsyg.2018.00487/full

And make sure life was run in such a way that it doesn’t cause unnecessary stress, and everyone has access to good medical care, keep our environments clean to create lovely surroundings for everyone, create the human right to an income above poverty level for everyone (no more uncertainty and stress like people having their benefits stopped and being left to starve) and all sorts of other things that would create a sense of well being for everyone. Instead our societies do the total opposite - cause endless stress and fear in most people, and leave them without basic necessities so that their physical and mental health deteriorates, causing misery and hopelessness.

Why are we like this? We have an epidemic of suffering consciousness and it doesn’t have to be like this.