Tragic and Dark Days in the U.S. Is it Time to Leave Here?

It has been a sad, tough couple weeks here due to all the violence and crime.

My former city of Minneapolis was hit with a mass shooting, then the church shooting of mostly school kids. The Ukrainian girl killed on a train in North Carolina. A retired professor attacked and killed while she walked her dog in a park. Now the assassination of Charlie Kirk. On the same day a school shooting in Colorado. There seems to be one of these every few days now.

The Kirk assassination reveals once again how divided the country is, how ugly some of the rhetoric is. I didn't listen to his show and probably disagree with him on some stuff, but we're supposed to be able to disagree and have the right to speak freely. Whatever your beliefs.

This killing will have reverberations for everyone, no matter what your views. The right to free speech has taken a hit. It's appalling to see this happening.

Seems like he just wanted to have a debate and open discussion when he visited college campuses. In some of the clips I've seen recently, he makes a lot of sense on many issues, though I disagree on support for Israel's genocide in Gaza. But it seems like he was starting to question the narratives of Israel in recent weeks.

The Ukrainian refugee, Iryna Zarutska, just minding her own business. Coming from working a shift at a pizza place. And attacked for no reason whatsoever. By a psychopath with 11 prior arrests who should not have been on the streets. And none of the people sitting nearby checked on her and even asked if she was OK. Not sure how much everyone knew what was going on, but a few sitting across the aisle had to have seen what happened, and seen her bleeding.

It just shows the heartlessness, the coldness in society among some people. People don't want to get involved. The entire thing is just brutal. Poor girl, she had no idea she had moved to another war zone here in the US.

There are many zombies roaming the streets among us here in the US. I have my own experiences riding the sketchy light rail to commute to a temp job in Minneapolis.

The dystopian nature of the US was a daily feature of that ride. The open drug use, the mean mugging by other groups of younger guys, the ranters and ravers, a shooting that happened at one of the stations. And almost being attacked twice by deranged, drug addled maniacs. At the end of that commute each day I was very relieved, and glad I made it home in one piece. I vowed I would never put myself in a situation where I had to make that light rail commute every day. A daily nightmare, way too unsafe.

The need for mental health institutions in this country should be a huge priority. Many people with serious mental health issues, and serious drug abuse issues, are riding public transportation all day. Some have nowhere else to go, nothing else to do.

I feel for the normal people who are just trying to get to a job and home, trying to make a living, and have to deal with that chaos every day. People trapped in that situation.

These are the kind of things that make people want to leave a place. So then the productive people, the ones who can, will vote with their feet and their money and leave. Which contributes to the death spiral of these cities.

Going through that experience made me miss living overseas even more. And for two huge reasons. The safety, and the quality of life. The US sometimes feels like living in an open air asylum.

Where I've lived and worked in Asia, South Korea, China, and places I've traveled to in SE Asia, the safety and quality of life is really on another level. Perhaps due to the Buddhist culture of some places, the importance of social harmony, respect for elders, respect for others in general, respect for education, for learning. And policies that give people opportunities and raise their living standards. All of these things add up to create really nice places to live.

And we're seeing that contrast between expats living and documenting their lives in some of these places, and the declining quality of life in the West, in the US.

Personally I start thinking and feeling that I can't live in the US long term. If I didn't have family that I'm close with here, I probably never would've returned from living overseas.

I don't see myself living here permanently, just too depressing. The country is in a dark place, and I don't think this is going to change any time soon.

As some commenters on Youtube and other social media are saying, the assassination feels like a turning point. Some are saying the US is on the verge of a civil war, and this is what has tipped it off. That's how it feels at times here. A cold war that just needs a few more sparks to go hot.

I think a lot about how the violence here affects all of us, our daily life in the US. The events I don't go to, avoiding crowds, big public holiday celebrations like July 4th or New Years Eve. How many of us have been personally affected and scarred by crime, violence, and know people who have been injured and worse.

The things we accept in this society are just not normal, and we don't have to live this way.

And it might be time to leave here. I'm looking forward to heading overseas again, possibly early next year.

I'll just close with a spirit of condolences, and keeping these victims of horrible violence and crime in my thoughts, and thinking of their families. Really just non stop sad days here in the US recently.

Take care and be safe out there.