Uncertain and Afraid

In which John doesn't know what to do in 2019, so he thinks about the W. H. Auden poem, "September 1, 1939."

Sources:

The Auden poem in question: https://poets.org/poem/september-1-1939

I also quote from Auden's "In Memory of W. B. Yeats," which why read when you can listen to Auden himself reading it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BNlS_Vbip_Q

People in the U.S. are less happy and more lonely on average than they were ten years ago: https://www.latimes.com/science/sciencenow/la-sci-sn-americans-less-happy-20190323-story.html

BUT happiness (and trends in happiness) vary a lot depending on where you live. You can read the full report here: https://s3.amazonaws.com/happiness-report/2019/WHR19.pdf

Why is U.S. life expectancy declining? https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/us-life-expectancy-declines-again-a-dismal-trend-not-seen-since-world-war-i/2018/11/28/ae58bc8c-f28c-11e8-bc79-68604ed88993_story.html

Violent crime is falling in the U.S. (and has been falling for decades except for a couple years in the 2010s). https://www.brennancenter.org/press-release/final-brennan-center-analysis-shows-crime-and-murder-rates-declined-2018

Median household income in the U.S. was higher in 2018 (and 2016 and 2017) than any year in American history (even after adjusting for inflation): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States (NOTE: This does not mean the economy is working well for everyone, and income does not equal wealth, and also as mentioned in the video none of this invalidates the abundant and truly terrifying horrors around us.)

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