The Spectacular Mess

Last summer, I was in Thailand for five of my six months of annual visa-exile from India. Sitting in the outdoor foyer of a hostel cum weedshop in Chiang Mai, I started chatting with a 20-something American woman who walked up and sat down. I broke the ice by complimenting her on the string of tattoos that ran down her leg. She explained their meaning and then, within 30 seconds, somehow started telling me about her two diagnosed psychological conditions—manic depression, and maybe ADHD—and the medication she was on. Our conversation continued and ended without incident. The next day, I was there again when the woman returned, accompanied by her 20-something boyfriend. Within two minutes, he (or she?) told me about his diagnosed psychological condition and the medication he was on, though I had in no way invited them to tell me this stuff.

In c.2007, during a rare visit to the US, I met a couple of 20-something military vets on a Greyhound bus who told me about the various psychological meds they were on. I’d read and seen Jarhead—after seeing horrors during Gulf War I or II or Afghanistan, maybe that’s not so unusual, I figured. On that same two-day ride, one 40-something man started freaking out when he realized that he’d forgotten to bring along his blood-pressure medication; and a 60-something man, on his way to the wedding of his daughter or niece—who’d been the class clown, walking up and down the aisle, making jokes—suddenly started panicking because he thought he was having a heart emergency. This happened just as the bus was approaching a medivac helicopter next to a wreck on the side of the highway, so the driver pulled over, and we managed to talk the paramedics into letting the man go with them.

The incidents on the bus clued me in to the mental health pandemic that has been spreading throughout the US, and acquainted me with people who, though not in a psych ward, were definitely “off,” in that their speech and paralanguage (expressions, tone of voice, etc) didn’t match—not to mention their divulgence of very personal information to a stranger, apropos of nothing.

An April 9, 2025 report by NationalAcademies.org is titled “Mental and Behavioral Health Disorders Are Increasing in US…” and continues, “Low-income communities, rural communities, and racial and ethnic minority communities are particularly affected…Suicide is the 11th leading cause of death overall, the second leading cause among people ages 10-14 and 25-34, and the third leading cause for ages 15-24...The US suicide death rate is the highest among 10 peer nations. Deaths related to alcohol have increased by 29.3% from 2016-2017 to 2020-2021. Between 2011-2021, adolescents reporting feelings of sadness & hopelessness increased from 28% to 42%…The well-being of Americans—how people evaluate their lives as a whole—has declined, placing the US 23rd among other nations.”

Now juxtapose the above with excerpts from three recent podcasts.

The Productivity Podcast of April 19 is titled The Slow-Motion Trainwreck of Society: “Have you ever heard it said that we live in the most advanced society in human history, but somehow half of us can’t afford rent, can’t see a doctor, and think that meal prep means choosing which bill not to pay, so that we can buy groceries? Welcome to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs, brought to you by late-stage capitalism, where the only thing self-actualizing is corporate profits, and everyone else is just trying not to scream in public.

“Modern society has failed spectacularly. Level 1, the base of Maslow’s Pyramid, is physiological needs like food, shelter, and not dying—absolute essentials. If those needs are not met, nothing else really matters. Next, Level 2, is safety—having a stable home, access to health care, financial security, and protection from harm. Next comes love & belonging, relationships, friendships, community. Above that is esteem—feeling respected, confident, and valued. At the top is self-actualization—the drive to fulfill your potential, create, and live with purpose.

“You can’t be your best self if you’re too busy just trying to survive. Right now, a lot of people can’t get past Level 1. Many of us, nonetheless, are trying to accomplish things higher up the pyramid without having established the essential needs at the bottom, and this is resulting in a great deal of suffering in our modern lives.

“Let’s start with housing. We have more empty homes than homeless people. You’d think this is a math problem, but it’s an empathy problem. It’s a system problem. a “we’ve decided that property is more important than people” problem. Some cities have criminalized sleeping in your car; others will fine you for feeding the homeless. What a compassionate society….they’re legally prohibited from surviving in public…food insecurity in the richest country on Earth…

“We have GoFundMe pages standing in for a functioning healthcare system. Let’s talk about water. In Jackson, MI, they didn’t have drinkable water for weeks. Flint, MI still has trust issues and lead in their water. Meanwhile, Nestle bottles millions of gallons of water from public sources and then sells it back to us. We’ve monetized existence. In a sane society, these would be red-alert emergencies; in ours, it’s just another day.

“After food, water, and shelter, we need physical, financial and medical safety. Safety in this economy? The average person is one missed paycheck away from Googling how to fake your own death. Rent has doubled, but wages haven’t budged since Blockbuster was a thing…Financial stability is a cruel joke now…If you’re not monetizing your hobbies, your sleep schedule, your personality or your trauma, are you even participating in the economy anymore? We’ve turned human beings into productivity units.

“Mental health? Therapists are either booked solid, or cost more than your car payments. Insurance doesn’t cover the good ones, but will cover pills, as long as you’re okay with the side-effects being possible death, or complete emotional flatlining. We’re the most medicated, most anxious, most disconnected generation in modern history, because we’re trying to function in a system that’s structurally indifferent to our survival.

“Maslow’s third level: love & belonging. But let’s be real—community is crumbling. Relationships are now maintained via memes and shared exhaustion. People are more isolated than ever. Dating is like applying for a job, where everyone has commitment issues, and ghosting is considered conflict resolution. We were promised connection, but all we got were apps, algorithms, and a crippling fear of vulnerability. I would say that people, by and large, are lonelier, sadder, more atomized than ever. We stare into the blue light abyss, hoping someone will message us first. And if they do, we immediately start strategizing how not to seem like we care too much or, worse, have needs. We live in an era of hypercommunication, and zero intimacy.

“You want to talk about self-esteem? in a culture that rewards narcissism and punishes self-respect, where success is defined by how much you can monetize yourself— your body, your trauma, your attention span. We cheer for mental breakdowns as long as they’re live-streamed in 4K. These days, people are burning out by the time they’re in their thirties. They’ve got imposter syndrome, student debt, and a deep existential dread.

“Maslow says the top of the pyramid is self-actualization, becoming your best self, fulfilling your potential. How exactly are we supposed to fulfill our potential when we’re working 60 hours a week just to survive? when the dream is now just not having a panic attack while you’re scrolling on Zillow. Self-actualization in 2025 is managing to survive without screaming into a pillow before 12 noon.

“Maslow didn’t lie, but society sure did. We’ve built a world that claims to help us climb the pyramid but, in reality, it digs a hole under it and sells us the ladder. Our society isn’t broken—it was built this way, to keep the base of the pyramid crowded and shaky, because desperate people are easier to control, easier to sell to, easier to exploit. You’re not failing—you’re functioning in a failing structure. You’re not the problem—the world you were forced to adapt to is…

“Being in Nature is the best therapy I’ve ever had. Make yourself get out there, whenever you can. You don’t have to fix the system—you just have to stop pretending that it isn’t broken. That is the beginning of real sanity, and maybe our actual path up the pyramid, but sideways, like a crab, because that’s the way we move now.

“Maslow built a nice pyramid, but he didn’t plan for billionaires hoarding the scaffolding. We’re out here trying to build a life on a base that’s crumbling, and people keep asking why we’re not meditating more. Meditation is good! It’s just that it’s hard to do something like that when you haven’t had your basic needs met. My advice is: Take a deep breath, help someone, touch grass, eat a warm meal.”

What else does a society prioritize that could cause such a mental health crisis?

On his Monday Morning Podcast of April 28, Bill Burr talks about a certain type of personality, the first at the Broadway Cares’ auction of props, after a performance of GlenGarry Glen Ross (which explores themes of capitalism, morality, and masculinity). “Bob Odenkirk was the auctioneer. When he got to the last item being sold, I saw this guy come walking down to the aisle, walking super-slow, staring right at Bob. He got to his front-row seat, and started talking to Bob as if the two of them were on a street corner, and I immediately had a visceral reaction to the guy: ‘There he is. Every fuckin’ show. Watch this—it’s gonna be all about him, and then [if he bids successfully] he’s gonna come downstairs, and we’re gonna have to meet this fuckin’ guy, and he’s gonna say all this weirdo shit: the narcissist’. He started talking, so I finally said, ‘Buddy! This isn’t about you. There’s an auction going on’, and everybody immediately laughed, cuz they saw the guy’s behavior. I said to the crowd, ‘This is one of my favorite games in the world. It’s called Find the Narcissist’. Then two other people outbid the guy, and I can’t tell you how relieved I was, having dealt with narcissists when I was growing up, because they always fuckin’ win! The only way to win is to walk away from them, but this was a bidding situation which he could control, but he ended up tapping out. They’re like gum on your fuckin’ shoe, cuz you cannot…get…rid of them. They want to be the center of attention and, if they’re not, they’re gonna create some sort of fuckin’ thing where they then become the center of attention. And everybody around the room who doesn’t have experience dealing with them just feeds into it, and they end up being the center of attention, and it’s been my whole fuckin’ life; it drives me up the fuckin’ wall. ‘I wanna be the center of attention’. ‘No, this isn’t your moment’. And then they pout, and they huff & puff, and they do all this fuckin’ shit, and someone invariably goes, ‘Is everything okay?’ and then the attention’s back on them again. It drives me fuckin’ insane and so, to watch this guy lose…I just felt it, this asshole’s gonna win, and then he’s gonna come downstairs, and…I could just tell by his fuckin’ jacket, and I didn’t want to hear it. Fortunately, two really nice people came downstairs, and they were totally cool, you know, regular human beings.”

Burr continues: “Having a narcissist as a fuckin’ president, again…I think that’s enough for me. I don’t need to be dealing with it in my personal life. We have not had a president that can deliver a speech that wasn’t embarrassing since Obama. We had this flim-flam guy, followed by a guy who should have been in a home, back to the flim-flam guy…In a Time magazine interview, they said to him, ‘You said you were gonna end the Russia-Ukraine war in one day’, and he said, ‘I was speaking in jest’, like, ‘I was just fuckin’ around! I was saying what I needed to say, man!’ And then he goes, ‘You guys didn’t come at Joe Biden like this’, and they go, ‘Actually, we did’, and then he goes ‘Huh?’ and they go, ‘No, we did’, and he goes, ‘Yeah, I know. He did terrible—he walked out of the interview’. This guy is, like, mentally ill. Like, how fucked in the head are you, that you just admitted that you just said that you had no idea that they interviewed [Biden] and then, to the same guy, not even 15 seconds later, you go, ‘Yeah, I know. I know that thing [that] I just said I didn’t know about. Now I’m saying I know it, and now I’m saying he did terrible, and I’m gonna make up a story that he walked out of the interview’ [which Biden did not do]. But you gotta hand it to the guy—it works for him [in the sense that his base swallows his endless lies and self-contradictions]. It somehow fucking works for him, and these [MAGA] people fuckin’ love him. The more he lies and the more he fucks things up, the more excited they are…These last ten years, and these people that have been in the White House, have been terrible for everybody in this fuckin’ country, unless you’re super-rich, evidently…but even they’re upset…”

On the Large Man Abroad podcast of April 29, titled Maybe It’s Time to Let the United States Fall Apart: “I think it’s time we call a spade a spade, and talk about America in the most honest way we possibly can. This country is falling apart. This country kinda sucks. There’s nothing really great about it anymore, except maybe the landmarks... But to actually live in this country is terrible… America, in general, makes you crazy. To be normal in America is to be a little bit insane. And people are leaving constantly now— 2025 is the year that you really see a great exodus of people from the States… There’s no real light at the end of the tunnel for the vast majority of people. Things are getting more expensive…the culture here doesn’t really exist anymore. The chickens are coming home to roost…These tariffs are gonna cause a nightmare for the people of America. Whether they voted for this or voted for that, it’s gonna hurt everybody.

“Like I said, IQ exists on a Bell Curve. A lot of the people in this country are on the wrong side of it—and that’s just the way that it is. And there are consequences of that, especially when that portion of the country has been weaponized, by people in power, to make sure that they stay in power. The country has turned on itself; the country’s falling apart and, because it has been dictated that ‘This is the will of the people’ by a segment of the people…you get what you deserve. Maybe it’s just time for America as we know it to go away; maybe it’s time for something else, because this ain’t it. This isn’t America the Great, America the Wonderful…I say, ‘Let it fall apart, at this point’. Once you’ve [lived abroad], it’s impossible to come back, and swallow that bullshit pill that’s been forced down our throats since we were kids. Let it burn, and let something else rise in its place, because this isn’t working for anyone. I take that back—it’s working for some people, but not the American people. The American people don’t even know what they want anymore. This system is working for corporations, for billionaires, for those at the very pinnacle of wealth and ownership, but for everyone else just squeaking by, from paycheck to paycheck—why defend this anymore?

“The worst part about this is: it can get much worse….and, more than likely, it will get worse, because the people are set against one another, at this point, by two parties that are essentially the same, yet very different. You don’t know who to trust. You can’t trust people in power; you can’t trust your local government; you can’t trust corporations; you can’t trust your job…What can you trust in this country? Nothing!

“We’re existing off of the addiction of nostalgia. We look back to the past, and say, ‘This is what America is’, but America now is just a parking lot in front of Walmart, one big waiting area for people going in and out of stores…I’m from the Beltway area of DC, and I just saw a special about food-banks going empty—food-banks that feed hundreds of thousands of people who can’t afford food. Any country that claims to be the greatest country on the planet, but can’t take care of the weakest, most vulnerable people, doesn’t deserve to call itself great…It’s a joke, and everyone knows it’s a joke…The emperor has no clothes…To turn away from global society, toward ignorance, is absolute folly. If a nation can’t see its own errors and, when you point it out, you’re called a traitor, then it’s not a nation worth saving. Honestly, at this point, what is there to say? I can’t believe that we’ve turned our backs on, turned against, all of our allies, at this point, and for what? for tariffs?”

The MAGA minions are slowly learning that Trump’s tariff, etc. promises were not, as it turns out, about helping them to better their lives—quite the reverse. As for what happens if/when they collectively decide to complain about it—with or without the guns they so love—along with the non-violent Harris voters who knew all along: “On April 28, 2025, Donald Trump signed Executive Order ‘Strengthening and Unleashing America's Law Enforcement to Pursue Criminals and Protect Innocent Citizens’. Sounds harmless. It isn't. It's a blueprint for authoritarian control without the need to formally declare martial law.”