Countries all over the world are panicking because more people are remaining single, refusing to have children, and are trying to figure out how to live communally without needing to be in any kind of relationship, even friendship. To me, it is hilarious that the emperor decided to obsess about an image that he and his ilk are no longer willing to provide, but that is what happens when nothing changes around an individual. Living on love may have worked in the past, but all the safety nets are gone and the resources are dwindling. Nothing is inspiring people to either have children or mate, and until there is a drastic change, none of those circumstances will evolve.
Remember when going to the supermarket felt romantic because it was time spent together, or being stuck in traffic led to an almost meditative calm? No? Neither does anyone else, because now people are already trying to figure out how to stretch $50 into produce, fresh or frozen. Those hours in traffic feel like a wallet pouring onto the street while everyone tries to figure out shortcuts since they can no longer afford to live anywhere near their jobs–and that was how the city was built. Ordinary errands are stressful, so romanticization feels impossible when the only thing anyone is calculating is how to keep themselves alive longer than the end of the day, and wanting to get up for the next one.
Heart eyes and moonlit walks are the stuff of romantic comedies, but almost no one is thinking about love in any terms other than survival. The human race may require reproduction to perpetuate, but the only thing sexy about existential dread is the idea of oblivion in someone else’s arms. Dating is expensive, and since so many people are already feeling like we are forced to chase external validation, doing it on purpose seems like an exercise in madness. Unless someone is willing to split the rent and the bills, relationships feel like an invitation to liability instead of teamwork without reasonable income.
In my recent past, I wanted to be a mother, and I spent years of my life trying to figure out a way that I would manage stability for myself or another human. There was even a time that I thought about adoption, fostering, or even having a baby by myself so that I would avoid the need to be “chosen” by someone, building a village with the people around me. However, the truth is that children are responsibilities, and when adults lack resources ourselves, we think of consequences not the journey of cultivating new people. Fortunately, that shoddy village never got the chance to traumatize a child, and I have been able to live on deprivation without involving the law due to neglect.
Sex, parenthood, and romance all sound really good in theory, but in an era of insane selfishness, it is not the responsibility of the younger generations to live in the delusions of the past. Younger people have been caught drinking and smoking less not because they have never considered such activities, but because addiction is expensive. Houses are bought by private equity and rented at insane levels, so why should anyone continue chasing that unicorn? Resources are required to stimulate biology, but when selfish people run the world, everyone else lives inside a really huge turn off, and those “elites” should consider the point of society when no one can live any kind of enjoyable life anymore.
Chasing A Dying Empire 