The Edges Are Fraying

Notes on cultural decay and what still might work

I’ve always felt like something was off before I was old enough to describe it. I remember the evening news topics of the 1970s such as gas lines and crime in the cities, almost normalized like the daily weather forecast. I had a mostly sheltered childhood in suburban Pittsburgh, but even that working-class upbringing didn’t spare us from the creeping sense that things were unraveling. My dad’s job at the factory wasn’t enough. My mom had to babysit at home to make ends meet while my dad took all the overtime he could. Even then, I felt the edges fraying.

Over the years, that sense of unease hasn’t faded. It’s become more like a background hum, getting louder with each passing decade. What was once low-level static now feels more like a steady, unavoidable drone.

I don’t think I’m the only one.

This isn’t just global conflict, culture wars, or societal injustice—the things we’re told we should fear. I imagine those things have always existed, and will to a certain degree. What I’m struggling to ignore is this sense of inevitable rot—a feeling that we’re speeding toward a tipping point. Or more accurately, a breaking point. Like a fever, things have to break before they can improve.

I feel this way because I’m old enough to notice this regression for five decades. I don’t know if there will be a breaking point, or if it’s even necessary, but it sure feels that way to me. The problems I studied as a history major in 1989 are the same variety my children are studying in college in 2026—only worse, and their degrees may be worth less than mine.

My disillusionment is not personal. Generation X was raised on skepticism, with the intuition that the institutions of our parents and grandparents were already hollow. We never expected to receive our Social Security benefits. We watched child sex abuse scandals unfold in the Catholic Church. We lived through the Enron debacle and the Great Financial Crisis, understanding that working hard and saving was not exactly a guarantee of “the good life.” We could already see the cracks in the foundations.

It feels like everything is turning into a team sport these days. Every issue, every debate, every minor disagreement becomes a commentary on who’s winning, who’s losing, and who needs to be punished based on the side they’ve chosen. These performances hide the deeper issue, which is ideological extremes don’t work for anyone. The paternalism of the Left, the crony capitalism of the Right, and even the free-market Libertarians who rely on the same systems they claim to despise—these aren’t solutions to the problem. If you’re here because you expect me to side with one of these factions, you’re going to be disappointed.

Although we’re invited to participate in the culture war, the real problem runs much deeper. The wealth gap, especially in the United States, feels wider than it has during my lifetime. You don’t need Bureau of Labor Statistics data to feel the pressure building. The true fault line sits between two grinding tectonic plates—the small percentage of the ultra-wealthy and everyone else. Sure, fairness and justice are important, but the reality isn’t that complicated: our society can’t keep it together much longer under this type of increasing pressure. The rise in anxiety, distrust, disgust, and drift over the past twenty years shouldn’t surprise anyone. At some point, people with nothing to lose will start taking losses from those who do.

The machine is huge, and there isn’t much any one person can do to change it. That’s the truth most people don’t want to admit. It’s easier to drift through life than to face how little control we have over it. But that doesn’t mean we can’t do anything. Quiet forms of opting out, shifting habits, and reallocating attention can create space to breathe. To rethink. Dramatic gestures or online posturing of resistance isn’t required. Rather, small choices that begin with stopping instead of starting.

Stop what, exactly? Stop feeding the things that make you feel sick. If you are tired of surveillance software tracking your online movements, uninstall it and try something open-source and transparent. If the constant drag of social media drama is making you angry, step away and meet a friend in person. If you feel like your money disappears faster even when you work harder, put a few dollars into something completely outside the traditional financial system. You won’t become a new person overnight. That’s not the point. The goal is to stop doing the things you already know are hurting you.

Or don’t do any of that. I don’t know you personally, and I’m not here to tell you what you should be doing. I’m trying to figure this out for myself, and I’ll share some things along the way. Some of it will resonate with you. Some of it won’t work. But I’m sure of one thing: I can’t keep doing the same things I’ve been doing inside the same system that created these problems in the first place. Nothing will change. Nobody is coming to save me. If I want any hope of personal sovereignty, to build cultural resilience, and to fight institutional decay, I have to make different decisions. I have to change old habits that are no longer working.

What will work when what I do no longer works?

That’s the question I’m trying to answer.

The modern wave of post-apocalyptic stories took off in the late 1960s, around the same time the current cycle of cultural deterioration began. The genre has always been a barometer, measuring the pressure building beneath the surface. I write post-apocalyptic novels. I’ve published dozens of them over the years because it’s the way I process what I’ve felt my entire life. Fiction is my “future mirror,” a way for me to explore how the future could unfold while still holding on to a thread of hope. My plan for this publication is to be a nonfiction counterpart to my post-apocalyptic novels, a place for me to think aloud about the present and how I want to imagine the future.

To that end, I plan on sharing my observations, field notes, and discoveries about the ways I can live with more autonomy and less decay. I don’t know anything for certain. I’m not a prophet or a hero. I’m not here to deliver answers. I’m more of an intellectual nomad, seeking truth instead of providing prophecies or solutions.

If you feel the same way, you’re welcome to come along. We’ll find our way somewhere. Eventually.