HROG #2: Exploring Metamodernism & Optimistic Nihilism in Sci-Fi.

Like many, I also go through life like a mollusc picking up new ideological shells to see if they fit against the mental attacks of life and the modern era: the existential dread of death, heat death of the universe, and other seemingly inevitable problems like climate change. There’s many maps that help us navigate these territories. Two such maps (that are related) that I wanted to explore from the get-go in Hope Runners of Gridlock was Optimistic Nihilism & Metamodernism. It’s a feeling of acceptance, and the pursuit of meaningful action in the face of seeming meaningless. The addition of sci-fi or fantasy can help elucidate these mental maps by creating novel fictional constraints or extremes that does not exist as apparently in the complex, messy life of the real world.