"Trust will outweigh gold" - WOW, so very true.

In many ways, it feels like we're seeing that/attempting to live though it RIGHT NOW.

Because, we are...

Like you, and many others have posted, I despair greatly at the lack of empathy for others; the futility of trying to engage with someone who is SO SURE that all of us are panicking doomsayers and such.

No, we're not...we're just paying attention.

I used to joke with my friends that many times I often wished that I could be, for lack of a better way of describing it "stupid" because honestly, those people so often seem to be the happiest, right? Just ignorant consumption while everything around them (and us) implodes. As you said, golf courses and scarfing down cheeseburgers - maybe this will be the title of a future historical account of the demise of our society: "Golf Courses and Cheeseburgers: The Collapse of Civilization"