Re: What is going on with this world?

Yes, there is a difference in the world, and a large one, and for the better.  According to FBI statistics you are far safer today than you were 40 or 50 years ago.  Yes, there's road rage but 50 years ago there weren't any freeways and no high speed roads to rage on!  I've been driving for 60 years and I don't think that your memory is very good.  The traffic of 50 or even 30 years ago was nowhere near what is today.  (I'm in the Seattle area and there is no comparison of the change in the number of automobiles in the past 30 years.)  I used to commute from Tacoma to Everett Washington (1988) and never hardly ever even slowed down on I-5.  Now it takes hours, literally.  I think you need your memory refreshed.  In total, there is less going on now.  You are just plugging in to the wider range of reporting than ever before in history.  It's part of what I wrote earlier, the problems aren't greater, they are just shoved at you from all angles which make them seem greater.

Ever hear of the Great Depression?  20% unemployment?  No minimum wage?  People starving and living in shanty towns?  I remember all of that.  55 million people were killed in WWII.  I can't remember how many were killed in Korea, probably because I was too close to the action - I was in the trenches.  Vietnam had thousands of U. S. casualties, many more than today in Iraq.  Speaking of terrorism, do you remember the zoot suit riots (zoot suiters vs U. S. Military men on the streets of our cities) in the U. S. during WWII?  Remember the rebellion/riots of the black sailors at San Pedro during WWII?  The Watts riots?  The Mafia wars?  Do you think that terrorism has never occurred before now?  Violence in the schools is highly publicized and very rare.  Do you remember Jim Crow?  How people who weren't the "right" color had to be second class citizens?  Separate facilities, denial of jobs and housing.  That wasn't legally challenged until only 40 years ago.  How soon we forget.  Yet there are those who would like to bring all of that back, and there are a lot of them.

Drug and alcohol use among teens is greater, but there is now a lack of direction.  I'm in favor of the draft, universal military training for all, male and female.  If the military can't hold them, then put them to use in civilian projects like the CCC of the Depression Era.  We had the male part when I was growing up and every guy knew he was going into the military.  The military years not only provided a lot of maturity, it gave many a free education, that's the only way I got to college.  We need that today.

Also, as a society we do turn to more pills today than ever before, however, is that the fault of the pharmaceuticals?  Or are people just seeking an easy way out?  I have family members who in the 1940s were hooked on Dexedrine and barbiturates, so that part isn't really new either.  People are taking less responsibility for their lives today than they were 40 or 50 years ago.

I'd still much rather have the world as it is today than the way it was 50 years ago.  It will never be perfect.

I agree with some of your points....expecially how there are more people and more forms of communication nowadays.... but I am 65, and when I was in school, there was drinking, not no rampant drugs. There was no road rage either, but there were plenty of cars.

There were also no nass shootings in schools, and no blantent terrorism, although there were plenty of wars and nasty political goings on.

I do see a difference in the world. A rather large one.

It is wonderful that you meditate for an hour a day, and cured your depression without a pill but few people do. The population at large is far more drugged out that you realize, I think. Pharmaceuticals is a billion dollar industry that takes itself very seriously. The majority to the pills now advertised on TV are for depression, and they push it hard.