There are quiet moments, moments when I can shut out the noise, but those moments are getting fewer and farther between.
Everything in this society, for me, is colored by two things, environmental collapse and Covid.
With the rate of climate degradation increasing, almost daily, and virus and disease running rampant, I am beginning to doubt what, I now view, as overly optimistic predictions of massive disruption by 2050.
There is so much going on right now that I can’t imagine the whole thing will stay together for five years, let alone twenty-five years.
Society is melting down faster than a snowball on a BBQ grill.
The dollar is crumbling, 68% of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck, the homeless and disabled are being marginalized, criminalized, and dismissed, brutality, violence and ugliness are being normalized, the ongoing pandemic is devastating everyone’s lives even if they don’t know it, our “cherished” children are being sickened and their lives are being destroyed by the twisted, ill-informed people who are supposed to care about them, people claiming compassion are liars who have no qualms about spreading a deadly virus, and all this against a backdrop of an administration that is gutting every social service it can get its hands on and abandoning everyone they claim to represent.
I had managed to convince myself that I was a strong person, that I would be an anchor for people who needed me when things got bad, but now things are bad, and I’m not nearly the person I imagined I was.
I look at all the people pretending everything is alright, and I find myself envying them, in the same way that I envy the dead.
In dark hours I want to be one of them, one of the blind or one of the dead.
I question whether everyone who advocates for calm acceptance and “peaceful, easy, feelings” during these times is experiencing any hardship. I wonder if they’re financially insecure, I wonder if they’re disabled, I wonder if they’re homeless or nearly so, I wonder if they’re concerned about where their next meal is coming from, and mostly I wonder if any of the above are true, would they be so “calm and accepting.”
This has been your bleak moment for this week.
I shall try to finish the satirical piece I had originally planned for today so that things will seem a little less bleak tomorrow.
>>> I’m not nearly the person I imagined I was.
Right there with ya Michael, if that's any consolation. We're in fugly mode from here on in...
"The living will envy the dead", and "The informed will envy the ignorant". I agree, it seems highly unlikely this could last even another 5 years, let alone 25.