microplastics and the search for where to go from here

I sat down to write and and felt myself swung deep into a nihilistic abyss over the state of things as I reflected upon the plastics industry and the fate of humanity as it is inextricably tied to capitalism, at the moment. I wondered if maybe people would slowly and painfully start to suffocate from plastics in the air and in our food, then turned to the reliably uplifting and sobering offerings of Maria Popova via BrainPickings. There, I read Viktor Frankl’s ruminations on the worthiness of living and Erich Fromm’s reflections on how both “'blithe optimism” and “end-of-the-world nihilism” extend from a “shared laziness” of the spirit. Popova, tracing the almost lyrical lines of Frankl’s Yes to Life, highlights this:

Through this nihilism, through the pessimism and skepticism, through the soberness of a “new objectivity” that is no longer that “new” but has grown old, we must strive toward a new humanity.

And so I wonder where to go from here after a morning of washing out plastic bags for reuse and trying to keep myself from falling prey to the drunken paralysis of hopelessness and faithlessness and anger.