What a strange and terrible month November has been. It feels like huge things have gone horribly wrong and a bunch of the little things have fallen apart, too. After the first six days it has been a struggle to write anything–my NaNo novel, this blog, thoughts on a napkin, anything. I feel not just uninspired but kind of depressed. Not in the clinical sense, just blah and unmotivated, a pervading sense of “Meh, what does it matter, the world sucks” overriding everything. And it does. The world is full of stupid, ignorant people. I have long suspected this but as the years passed and I grew older and gained more experience and perspective, I shed my cynicism and chose to believe that people are fundamentally good, that they are decent and do the right thing (most of the time).
I no longer believe this.
People are fickle, prone to acting on often irrational emotion, are easily swayed to act against their own interests and are generally not interested in logic, rationality or anything that might disrupt their world view, however absurd or unrealistic it might be. It is the veneer of civilization (which is going to be sorely tested in the next decade or two) that holds everything together, but that veneer is thin and, I think, on the verge of peeling away, with dire consequences.
If you think we are removed from our savage, primitive past, consider what has happened in the last century, the wars, the acts of terrorism, the millions upon millions of people killed. And what were they killed for? Not believing the right ideas. Living on the wrong chunk of land. Nonsense. We fight and kill over nothing worthwhile because we can do no better.
We see people like Trump elected president–an ignorant, bullying, racist, sexist and entirely unfit individual for the office–because we can do no better.
The best we can hope for is that our species somehow survives itself long enough to evolve well past where we are now. Climate change–and remember, Americans just elected a man who thinks it’s a hoax–will force us to face reality, not the preferred bubble so many prefer to see as reality, but the actual, horrible truth.
But we won’t pull together, we will tear apart. We will devolve to our worst selves, incapable of adapting to the massive changes to come. We will do this because we prefer ignorance to reality, because in the end we’d rather help ourselves than help others.
I wish I didn’t believe this because it means the only thing that makes sense to write any more is post-apocalyptic dystopian fiction. And while I love a good post-apocalyptic dystopian story, I’d prefer to write whimsical, funny things, stuff that is slight but entertaining in its own way. But it’s been challenging this month. The news is just so relentlessly awful (the real news–the fake news is even worse).
But if the choice is to despair or hold onto hope, however slim, I have to go for the latter. Who knows, maybe there really is some benevolent alien race waiting to swoop in and harvest save us. Or we’ll figure out cold fusion and lick global warming at the same time. Or a comet will sweep past Earth and the dust in its tail will boost everyone’s intelligence exponentially. “You’re playing 3D chess again? The challenge only starts when you move to 4D chess.”
And flying cars for everyone.
I conclude with two promises to myself: the first is to write something every day. On this blog, in a story, on a napkin. But somewhere. And every day. The second is to retain that thin hope, to stave off pessimism.
Okay, one more: no farmer’s tan next summer.
