I am dealing with Apocalypse Ennui. And if you’re listening to this, there’s a good chance you’re dealing with it too.

What is Apocalypse Ennui? Is it two words mashed together because the sound almost alliterative? Very much so! Are they two dramatic sounding words that, when mashed together, sound instinctually authoritative? Also yes! But what does it mean, truly? I’ll start with a brief definition of the word ‘ennui’. Ennui: a feeling of weariness and dissatisfaction.

So then what is Apocalypse Ennui? It’s the utter wearisome exhaustion that comes with living through a seeming cascade of Apocalypses.

It’s the chains of memes bitterly admitting that folk would still be expected to go to work when the world ends around them. It’s the pointlessness in your heart as you want to start projects but quit before you begin because you live within an hour of a major metropolitan city when nuclear war is being dusted off and talked about. It’s that tiredness in youe back, in your step, as you do anything, waiting for an inevitable crumbling of an unsustainable system. That is Apocalypse Ennui.

So why am I bringing this up now? Because like millions of folk worldwide, I woke up one morning to hear the words nuclear missiles from a world power and I live in an area that could get hit.

There was, of course, the initial reaction. Paralyzing fear. Shaking. Panic. Massive anxiety attacks. Questioning why I was living where I was, doing what I do and not being where I want with who I want living my dream. I quite honestly nearly abdicated the area I lived, too. But as time moved forward, I didn’t.

See, I tried to write this script a month ago, after the initial panic, after I was calmed. But I couldn’t. I couldn’t see the point. Why write, why create, why feed into a system that could be ended any day with a convoluted series of red button pushes half a world away? Why try and keep struggling towards starting a publishing business on the side of your day job when the economic basis has teetered precipice in the past two years? Why plan anything when global climate change may reshape the world and how we live as we know it in five, ten fifteen years?

What’s the point? What’s the purpose? Why try? Why?

Don’t get me wrong. I think these are big issues. But I don’t think they are insurmountable as a collective species. But try telling your brain this and making it stick. It didn’t. And every day for weeks it was the same. Go to work. But why go to work? Do a healthy food. What’s the point? Begin the meandering jogging routine you like to do? So what?

It is exhausting. All the time exhausting. It isn’t burnout. It’s the dull throb of purposelessness all the time. Twenty-four seven. It causes you to feel alone. Isolated. Devoid of anyone else.

And that is Apocalypse Ennui. The utter proliferation of events and disasters on a scale and a timeframe that just…hurts. It drains you of your will to do. Your will to build. Your will to help. It doesn’t sap you of your purpose, but it makes it damn hard to find the effort to do it.

I don’t have an easy answer for it. Knowing you're not alone in this may help. Knowing it gets better if you actively try to do things or have a support of friends who forces you to be social helps. Decompressing from the news helps in the short term. But the only way for me I’ve found to deal with it is to, well, just keep trying. And that’s the best any of us can do.