Young, Anxious, and Addicted; Insights from the Post-Pandemic Trenches

By amcquinn June 6, 2024 Addiction, Alcoholism, Anxiety, Depression, Drug Use, Heilkunst, Homeopathy, Love Function No Comments

I was serving a friend, and long-term colleague, the other day when she said, “You know Ally, the youth that I work with are in trouble after the pandemic. They’re suffering so much. Basically, they’re young, anxious, and addicted.”

The best way to demoralize a whole generation is to drug them, provide them with meaningless education for jobs they don’t really want, and then tell them they’ll never be able to afford a shelter of their choice. Also make things they want like a car and a cell phone plan so damned expensive, they start sacrificing their nutrition and sleep to try to get them.

“You often feel tired, not because you’ve done too much, but because you’ve done too little of what sparks a light in you. Many of us spend our working days running from desk to desk, solving urgent but insignificant problems. Our managers are constantly searching for ways to get more out of us. We’re habitually living in the future, thinking about the next quota to make, the next meeting, the next car to buy, the weekend. We’re constantly trying to get somewhere instead of being where we are. We miss the only moment we ever have access to ‘The Now’. We spend more time at work than with our loved ones. And when we come home, we are busier connecting to our devices than to the people we love. We have become little more than zombies. Yet we wonder, ‘Why am I so tired?’ We figure it’s because we work too much. What if we’re not doing too much, but rather we’re just doing too little of what truly matters? It’s not hard work that exhausts us most, it’s meaningless work that exhausts us most.”

-Alexander Den Heijer

What you end up with is a segment of the population who’s living in their parents’ basement into their thirties, angry at their lack of autonomy, and feeling shame for not being able to craft a more autonomous life. This causes those caught in this entanglement orchestrated by the nefarious powers that be (banking cartels, politicians, WEF, UN, and the illuminati) to reach for any psychedelic drug, often combined with alcohol and cannabis, just to get momentary reprieves from the private hell on earth that they’re barely surviving.

We get it. We, ourselves, have been here before and spiraled out of control, with the diseases of our parents and grandparents thrown in just to add more color. Talk about a hero’s bloody journey against all odds. It’s the worst and most tragic monopoly game ever invented. It’s like the maniacal forces that reign supreme are working totally against you. That is because they are!

What do young folks do when thrown into spiritual survival mode? Ah, that is a great question. Especially when you’ve been equipped by an education system for a time that no longer exists.

Pivoting, plot twists, out-thinking your oppressors, living clean, eating well, exercising like your life depends on it (because it does), plus reading and studying autonomously like your life depends on it (and not what you learned in any institution). Find what rings true, what feels like the truth, and for the love of all that’s holy, get out of the matrix that oppresses you.

Yes, terrifying I know – but living in your parents’ basement for the next twenty years is pretty terrifying too. I’m going to provide you with a scenario that I used, and continue to use, to get myself and others out of their geographic suffering to start with. It involves a back-pack.

We actually lived as digital nomads for a decade, exploring several countries out of the back of our car, hundreds of buses, and a few flights to finally determine where we wanted to live. We needed to get the illusory overhead off our back. We left Canada for Mexico, where it costs one third of what it costs to live way up north. We’ve worked from home for the last twenty three years, with the exception of a few short stints in others’ clinics, including our own.

The first resource that we accessed for a lot of information on how to be digital nomads was Natalie Sisson’s book, The Suitcase Entrepreneur; Create Freedom in Business and Adventure in Life. It was a game changer back in 2013 when we first read it. She wrote,

“It’s never been easier and more affordable to build a business from anywhere using online tools, social media, outsourcing, and a lot of hustle. What’s more, you can choose to do this while living wherever you want in the world in your hometown or in another country or even from your suitcase. I should know. After eight years in the corporate world I’ve built a multiple-six-figure global business from scratch, starting with just a blog and close to zero investment. For the last seven years I’ve traveled the world, living out of my suitcase while running my business, which is essentially teaching others how to build their own freedom business.”

From ‘Self-Reliance’ by Ralph Waldo Emerson:

Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail.

After twenty four feet of snow in Saint John, New Brunswick that same year and a seven month work sabbatical at a friend’s home, while house-sitting her plants and her woodstove, my partner, Jeff Korentayer, said, “We’re actually completely independent as business owners, why don’t we look at becoming location independent?”

I remember the synapses in my mind firing with sudden possibility, ‘What would that look like?’ Thinking he was going to suggest another location in Canada or the U.S., “How about Mexico?”, he suggested. My eyes widened. I started to pack my suitcase with sundresses and a couple of bathing suits without skipping a beat. At the time, I was afraid he might change his mind.

“Nietzsche was the one who did the job for me. At a certain moment in his life, the idea came to him of what he called ‘the love of your fate.’ Whatever your fate is, whatever the hell happens, you say, ‘This is what I need.’ It may look like a wreck, but go at it as though it were an opportunity, a challenge. If you bring love to that moment–not discouragement–you will find the strength is there. Any disaster you can survive is an improvement in your character, your stature, and your life. What a privilege! This is when the spontaneity of your own nature will have a chance to flow.

“Then, when looking back at your life, you will see that the moments which seemed to be great failures followed by wreckage were the incidents that shaped the life you have now. You’ll see that this is really true. Nothing can happen to you that is not positive. Even though it looks and feels at the moment like a negative crisis, it is not. The crisis throws you back, and when you are required to exhibit strength, it comes.”

— Joseph Campbell

For myself, I was not going to live like terrified prey in survival mode for the rest of my life. I’d have to put on a perpetual drip, the homeopathic remedies Aurum (loss of one’s inner value) and Stramonium (fear and terror from narcissistic aggressors) for the rest of my sorry days here on this earth trapped in ridiculous financial circumstances. I had to find a way out!

I recently said to our Canadian friends, when they visited, “If I had to live in the States or Canada, I’d have to be on prescription drugs, alcohol, and a constant drip of really powerful cannabis and psychedelics on the weekends. Being slowly boiled like frogs in pots while fully conscious would just make me feel perpetually powerless and suicidal. I’m not sure how folks at any age do it anymore! Do they even realize that they have a choice or are they so trauma-bonded that they can’t see any options anymore? If so, how is life worth living on the daily?”

I’d rather live in the sweet lap of Latin America, dancing in the streets, going to concerts every week (because I can afford to), be surrounded by art, eat whole food year-round at a fraction of the cost, and be a sober activist while dealing with the little bit of guilt I feel for being so freakin’ happy. At least being here means I can openly express my anger, frustration, grief (loss of my beloved family who’ve chosen to stay in Canada), fears, and hate for the circumstances that others are suffering through; young, anxious and addicted.

… that ‘each man is questioned by life; and he can only answer to life by answering for his own life; to life he can only respond by being responsible.’ What is demanded of us, Frankl says, is not ‘to endure the meaninglessness of life as Jacques Monod, H.P. Lovecraft, John Gray and others would have us do, but rather to bear [our] incapacity to drag its unconditional meaningfulness in rational terms’. This is the kind of meaning we find in music, in sunsets, and in love, none of which are amenable to ‘rational terms’. ‘Thus,’ Frankl wrote, ‘logo-therapy sees in responsibleness the very essence of human existence.’ There is meaning in everything, but it is up to us which we address to the universe, demanding it respond before we agree to participate in it. Instead, Frankl argues to draw it out.

~From, The Caretakers Of The Cosmos: Living Responsibly in an Unfinished World, by Gary Lachman

Eddy Murphy once said in a hilarious monologue (which I’ll paraphrase), “Why during horror movies do white people always stay in the house after the poltergeist moves in?” He quips, “Get out, get the f%^& out?! It makes no sense. Black people would not stay around to see how that s#$t turns out!”

The bottom line is that you have a choice, many choices actually. You can actually hit the road! We meet young digital nomads from around the world daily in this Mexican town of Guanajuato. Find on-line work that is supremely fulfilling, that only takes ½ of the day to complete, and live like you’re perpetually on vacation. Find your own mental, emotional, and physical liberty first and then, perhaps, offer the oxygen mask of perspective and liberation to others. Your quality of life depends on it!

Natalie Sisson writes, “I built my business and community out of nothing but a blog and a desire and determination to fit my work around my dream lifestyle, not the other way around.” And you can too. It’s never been easier to hit the road, live out of a van, your car, Airbnbs, house sit (housesitters.com), couch surf, or connect with other digital nomads who are also location independent. Perhaps, like us, you’ll find the home of your dreams, settle down, learn a new language and culture, and design your own life with art, music, so much joy, and play. ¡Nos vamos mis amigos!

Note: I’ve been helping folks for years make the move to Mexico and get their financial portfolios into their own sovereign hands. Depending on your circumstances, I can offer you different resources and assistance. Please book into my schedule at amcquinn@arcanum.ca to discuss any of the above options further.

Resources for bolstering your sense of autonomy/sovereignty from the inside out:

The Suitcase Entrepreneur: Create Freedom in Business and Adventure in Life by Natalie Sisson

The Caretakers Of The Cosmos by Gary Lachman

The Emptiness Of Our Hands by Phyllis Cole- Dai and James Murray

Meet Your Strawman: And Whatever You Want To Know by David E. Robinson

The Bitcoin Standard by Saifedean Ammous

The Freedom Writers Diary by Erin Gruwell and The Freedom Writers

Outwitting The Devil by Napoleon Hill

Total Freedom by Jiddu Krishnamurti

The Alchemy of Freedom by A. H. Almaas

Standing At The Edge by Joan Halifax

This Life, Secular Faith and Spiritual Freedom by Martin Hägglund