The End of the World as We Know It

Ever since COVID-19 made its grand entrance into our collective lives in early 2020, I have had the uneasy feeling of society's decline, both in terms of economic vitality and of people's will to succeed.  I know that's got to be difficult to measure or wrap your mind around, but it's a composite of a number of things.  For one, it seems that every business that used to operate later into the night now closes up measurably earlier, for some painfully early.  Housing and transportation costs have skyrocketed...young people nowadays must have a terrible ordeal with the narrowing choices they have for getting themselves independently established on a shoestring budget.  The availability of prompt medical and dental care...outside of emergency rooms and clinics...has deteriorated, with the professionals breaking appointments with patients and throwing their needed care sometimes months further into the future, and of course the costs of said care are soaring.  Speaking of decline, is it just my own subjective perception but are people more and more prone to voluntarily letting themselves get brainwashed politically by the mass and social media that they have now on their fingertips?  Furthermore, have people now redefined their view of reality itself to encompass virtual, digital realms instead of what is actually physically out there?  There's more I'm seeing as well, and it ain't getting any better, folks...but at least I'm still getting by (so far).  As Michael Stipe of R.E.M. prophetically wrote in a 1988 song, "It's the end of the world as we know it, and I feel fine"...