Science fiction
At what point do we pass from reality to how the hell did it get like this?
(Arguably we’re already there!)
What, you think this was how it was meant to play out, namely, a planet brought to its knees by dint of our egregious and wanton consumerism?
Yawn, effing yawn.
You’ve heard it all before and, indeed, the airwaves are replete right now with #COP28 this and #COP28 that, as if another Conference, with an assemblage of the great and the good, is going to make a ha'p'orth of difference to our continued demise and every other living thing that can’t withstand the tsunami of extreme climatic and chemical vortices that are heading our/its way.
The truth is that the seeds of our demise were sown a long time ago. Arguably, when the Romans exacted their brand of domination or if not then when surplus, money and then capitalism had us all in swoon — or at least those at the top of the pyramid. Add into the lofty mix the whole apogee of ‘greed is good’, ‘there is no society’ and ‘we’re here to dominate nature’ and it doesn’t take Einstein to work out where we’d end up. Oops, I nearly forgot the Great Acceleration when we added a few billion people to our intergalactic ambitions. Just imagine it now: 10 billion people by 2100 all or practically all with the same materialistic desires as my generation. Earth overshoot day will be in the negative before it’s even begun.
And then there are the solution junkies. You know the types. We create a problem and then swoop in to sort out our shit.
Madness. Lunacy. Jaw-dropping hegemony.
As an aside, and not to be too hyperbolic with my chagrin on this issue or any other of the same paradigm, but when I see someone talk about the multifarious problems with the workplace — e.g. bullying, sexism, power struggles of all types and how to be all you can be (which is a fool’s errand) — I can’t help feel that ‘work’ and the way it’s set up is the problem. Doesn’t anyone think to ask what we did, like way back in the days, before we invented a multiplicity of labels to encapsulate the stupidity of trying to get everyone to behave themselves and colour within the lines when (of course) work is the last thing that anyone wants to do? This in no way excuses the abhorrent behaviour that I’ve witnessed down the 40-odd years I’ve been pulling my cart up and down the work furrow but, absent the money, I can guarantee you that no one or no one I know would be remotely interested in wasting their lives doing the BS jobs that have proliferated like proverbial mushrooms in a dank room.
Anyhow, back to the heading of this piece.
I read the headlines, as much of the science as I can and try to keep abreast of world affairs but I’ve long since given up on the notion that we can stop the Anthropocentric juggernaut that will, as I’ve said, wipe us out in the coming decades — not centuries. You (of course) may not agree and are much more hopeful than me. Fine. It’s a free country as they say; but if you’re going to ascribe to the notion that we can limit our emissions, stop drilling for oil and gas and consume it at an increasing rate of knots (just think of all that plastic that will be created this coming Christmas!) and allow the corporation to be the driving force in the destruction of the Earth and all its living systems (see the book Ecocide by David Whyte) then you’re going to have to square a very small circle in my opinion. What do I mean? I mean that the problem is simply too wicked, too vast and too extreme for us to change things. And you have to think globally, not locally.
At this stage, you might be wondering if I’m an avowed misanthrope.
Good question.
In short, yes, but I still retain a scintilla of hope that we can, before we fall off a cliff edge never to be heard from again (and take everything with us…), regain our sanity and love for something more than our desire for MORE.
Yes, that’s it.
That’s the message.
Wake up.
Wake up.
Wake up…before it’s too late.
Anyhow, that’s enough of my finger-wagging for today; and apologies for the hiatus in my writing to Substack. I have still been writing but on Tumblr since my blog went offline.
Have a good one.
Blessings, Julian