Over the weekend I spent a few hours “discussing” finance with a right-wing co-worker. Steve is a typical, hate-radio-listening Republican team player, so of course he blames various Democrats (going all the way back to Jimmy Carter) for our nation’s current financial crisis. Even though he knows I’m not a Democrat, Steve feels like he’s scoring points in our debates by reciting the latest meme from Rush and the gang. See, the Democrats forced the banks to make bad loans to lower income people in order to buy their votes. The Wall Street Masters of the Universe had nothing to do with it; the poor, untrustworthy and unreliable as they are, bankrupted our economy.

Despite these evil machinations by the Democrats and the poverty-stricken, Steve is confident that the situation will soon turn around. He declared me—and my belief that the entire financial system is fundamentally flawed and doomed to failure— to be insufficiently optimistic. I have to grudgingly accept that possibility.

I have to, because I am aware of the underlying pessimism in my basic philosophy of life. I believe it stems from my atheism, or, more precisely, from the observation that my country and most of my entire world are controlled by people who profess to believe that some sort of invisible cloud-fairy watches over, and approves of, the atrocities we commit on our planet and each other. So yeah, sometimes I find it difficult to look on the bright side.

But then, this morning, I tune my teevee to the BBC channel and HOLY CRAP THE SKY IS FALLING! Every major market is down sharply; some have even suspended trading. Europe’s banks are in trouble. The entire country of Iceland is teetering on the brink of financial collapse. Governments around the world are scrambling to find ways to prop up the system, and the trillion or so dollars our government has thus far committed to maintaining the status quo is beginning to look rather trivial.

So, my atheistic pessimism is getting a little shot of adrenalin this morning. I wonder what will happen when US markets open in a little while. Will the “system” right itself like my friend Steve says it will? Or will our government have to take additional steps to save it? Do we actually need to save it? Is it worth saving? Is it genuinely worth anything at all?

I find it interesting that, for the vast majority of us, there exists in this crisis a powerlessness that I imagine is akin to that from which religious belief arises. I think I’ll go play some disc golf and ponder that a bit. It beats hanging around watching my chances for retirement recede into the distance. Sigh.