Thanks for the sympathy. I apologize if you thought I meant anything at all about you - I did get myself triggered, and in greatly shortening the text it lost clarity that I was attempting to humorously refer to the community's motto:

A place for majestic STEMLORD peacocking, as well as memes about the realities of working in a lab.

Without the word "peacock" in my reply... yeah that just got totally lost didn't it?:-P Also, this little gem of a 10-year-old video worked its way into my language as well:-P.

You - and that Denethor quote - are totally right. We cannot manage to control the entire universe, so we should just focus on what we can do. e.g., we aren't all going to make it, I now think, therefore I help those who I can. Like literally, what more could possibly be done?

Also, I have lost hope that the short- or medium-term situation will improve, but I can still fight back by slowing the degradation.:-) Some possibly nice words to that effect: the concept of "hope", much like "good", does not exist in a vacuum: we need to hold out hope FOR something specific - so it helps to try to form a mental picture for what that is.

We cannot ever move back, so all that remains is to decide how best to move forward, choosing among the options that do exist.