It isn't you - it's the world.

It's a very dark time these days and there doesn't seem to be a path for it to improve.

I am skeptical that Large Language Models like ChatGPT will really be as amazing as they claim, but it will certainly kill a lot of jobs for people. I'm a programmer, lost my job a month ago, and all the new jobs seem to be AI-related, most of which aren't actually programming!

Medium simply doesn't make money, which is why they don't pay, but worse is how the Internet, even before LLMs, destroyed the value of people's language skills. It turns out that most of us would rather get mediocre, for free, than quality they have to pay for.

And over it all we have the spectre of the upcoming climate catastrophe.

(In your case, there's the additional stress of Portugal getting Yanked. In my case, I live in a city I love but in which I cannot afford to stay, and I'm old and fear death.)

I don't have a good solution for you, I'm afraid. I saw the very funny and smart comedian Eddie Izzard many years ago. (They go by "Suzie" now but have said they answer to both names without a problem, so I'm going to use the historical gender.)

One catch phrase he used a lot, particularly on some of the more bitter jokes, was, "It all ends in tears." It's strangely funny and consoling. During the Bush Administration, I would get very hot under the collar and my good friend Phil would say, "Don't worry, Tom, it will all be over soon," and you know, it made me laugh every single time.

I find pets are very useful for keeping a good perspective. Our very old dog died this year - when I woke up at night, I'd find her under the covers and pet her when I had existential angst, and I miss her for a lot of other reasons too - and our other dog didn't seem to notice she had gone. Some wise person on Mastodon said, "Pets lives in the moment, and that is their gift to us. We remember, and that is our gift to them." This made me cry then, and now for that matter.

Take care, and remember (gotta end on a lighter note) that eating just one fossil fuel executive reduces your climate footprint more than going vegan for your whole life.