A Sadder Turn of Mind

It occurs to me that my writing may seem a bit different than usual.  I am less optimistic, more generally concerned or even "apocalyptic".

To be fair, I often have this bent of mind even if I do not always present it here.  I tend to believe the worst about most things instead of the best.  I learned long ago (the one thing I remember from Macroeconomics) how tenuous the modern economy is, and how easy it would be for a small event to rupture what we have come to expect as normal.  And I have lived through a failed business and a corporate layoff with the uncertainty that comes when suddenly what you expect as normal ends and where your next paycheck comes from is the sort of silence that does not provide comfort.

For some reason, this time feels different.

Maybe it is because I live smack dab in Oil Central and while I am not directly impacted I have heard the stories of the last crashes and the stories that are coming now as the industry is seemingly headed to the bottom.  Perhaps it is because I read of what seems to be a slow motion crash of markets everywhere and I understand that even a consumer society can reach the point of saturation, where there is no longer  need to buy anymore.

Perhaps it is because voices I value - rational voices, not the type to cry wolf - are saying the same thing and in some cases have gone silent.

I cannot see into the future.  I can only look through the lens of the past to see what has happened in the past and how it matches up with what is occurring.

Why is it that what I see alarms me?