So I have a bit of a problem. I like reading about futurology - about the cool stuff we can do with technology in the future, and the issues to watch out for surrounding the adoption of said technology. This is all well and good, right up until the fact that apparently some people take "issues surrounding new technology" to mean "post screeds about how the economy is going to blow to smithereens Real Soon Now". (This might be somewhat biased because I really mostly got my stuff from /r/futurology, but still.) Even that might not be a problem, if not for the fact that that's specifically the thought process I want to stop having. Y'see, one of the things that I've worked on a lot, re my trauma, is something called a sense of foreshortened future, which basically means "I'm convinced that I'm going to die at some point soon and act accordingly". As to how I worked on it? I just... started planning good things for "two weeks ahead". Then, after I could viscerally understand that, I pushed it forwards to "three weeks ahead", then "one month ahead", "two months ahead", and so on; right now I'm stuck at nine months, but I figure that's good enough given that I've got some other unrelated problems that I need to fix first re: energy levels and also further education not being evil. So I know that reading about apocalyptic predictions is counterproductive from that. But it's really hard to find groups/aggregators without an apocalypse fixation but also with the focus on topics I like (futurology, grassroots anarchism/socialism, etc.) because as far as I can tell, all these groups have at least some people who think that the collapse is inevitable and/or necessary for progress. I don't want to be reading about the apocalypse because it makes my brain Not Happy and Incapable Of Planning; but I also don't want to have to forego the fact that I enjoy reading everything else. So far I'm just avoiding the groups entirely, but I'd like to know if there's any better answer than that.
I don't know if this is the right answer but it's my answer: A post-apocalyptic future is usually a future. A lot of apocalypses would leave you alive and you can still do stuff even though it would be different stuff. Try thinking about moving forward in the post-apocalypse. Finding food and water. Rebuilding. Did you ever play that really addictive zombie flash game Rebuild, where you play as a ragtag band of survivors trying to reclaim land and house survivors and grow food and stuff? Think of the apocalypse as a thing that would make life different, not necessarily end it. Ok, the apocalypse might happen or it might not. Also it might rain tomorrow or it might not. And you might catch a cold this week or you might not. You can plan for what you'll do if those things happen and for if they don't. Plan to go for a run tomorrow (if that's a thing you do) but check the sky beforehand and own an umbrella. Plan to go to the fair (or something) but also buy a bag of those soothing lozenges. I read a... different kind of doomsday scenario... but my plans are like "this year study X and maybe Y, next year look for X jobs, then after that look for Y jobs... unless all the good Christians suddenly ascend into the sky, then grab my backpack and some food and run for someplace less likely to be a major battlefield in the end of the world!" Wonder if people who obsess about the world ending have the foreshortened future thing themselves.
