The headlines are grim. Coffee futures are rising and Italians are “afraid and panicked“. What comes next?
It’s hard to imagine this reality is anything but a strange fever dream inflicted upon us by an angry demon/Manichean/gnostic demiurge who seeks to inflict maximum chaos and madness upon our collective psyches. I’m in a situation where I’m not in physical danger, but am paralyzed watching the negative outcomes all over the world. It is an escape to blame this current reality on an outside force inflicting anything on us, but rather the result of our own ignorance and malfeasance.
We have no one to blame but ourselves. Which is doubly tragic because as an individual I feel powerless to have any impact on what is happening in my world. In our world. That lack of control can be a terror, but perhaps it’s also a gift—from a stoic perspective, we never had any control over anything to begin with, just our reaction. This is a hard to stomach philosophy when you see people dying, injured, terrorized, and destroyed on the daily news each day and feel powerless to do anything (and change the channel).
With that in mind, what one decides is a step too far—coffee prices for Italians or the use of violence as a valued method for achieving political ends—makes me feel like we’re headed backwards in a direction that is not too good or beneficial for most of humanity. If you accept that you have no real control how long is it until you also decide that the world isn’t able to be better than it is, that reality is the only true guiding star and that things suck because they’ve always sucked, for the mass number of people on the planet at any particular time.
And so there is nothing to be done but take care of the people you can and love, do work that feels meaningful in some way, whatever that might, and save the ones you can, including yourself. I’m not sure that’s enough of an answer and it’s certainly not a solution. But then again, according to this cynical philosophy there are no answers. And then when the whole mess comes down to the last minute, the last second, what was it all for? Personal pleasures, aesthetic delight, relationships with those around you, finding something to make sense of it all? There should be more to it than that. Shoulds…
I’m not mentioning the gorilla in the room, but the current U.S. political situation and the role that voters (not to mention those who don’t get a vote in other countries but will be inflicted with whatever the hegemonic power decides to do/or not do) played in putting this man back in the White House is demoralizing as well. If the mass of those voting (although Trump did not win the majority of the vote! He doesn’t the mandate he claims to have) are not doing so in the best interests of anyone—including themselves—what is the purpose of democracy except as a masochistic torture for those who are forced to live in a world designed to empower a certain group, who then convince enough others to perpetuate their quasi-dictatorship of the majority (or not even, just the electoral college)? Democracy as a value, democracy as a belief is different than democracy in action. Or perhaps it’s not. The alternatives appear to be much worse, however (Syria, Myanmar, China, Iran, Russia, etc.). Although Singapore seems to be keeping their shit together.
It is depressing to think of democracy as a fiction or perhaps better as an unrealizable goal that we never actually reach but pursue—at the very least it is a process that allows the people to have limited ability to have a meaningful input in the institutions that govern and control their lives.
This whole post is making it seem like I’m some red pill/anti-gov supporter, I think I’m just depressed and trying to find some way to explain what has happened and acknowledge the larger reasons for why it happened. One way to survive is to realize/understand that this current situation is not an exception to the rule, but more like the norm/mean. We live here and we always have except for small breathes of freedom and fresh air.
Wish I had a better message to share. The next question I guess is what then is there to do, what can we do to try and make the world a little better, what small way can we contribute that feels manageable and sustainable, without the hope that the bigger picture will improve even as we are getting perilously close to real environmental collapse/degradation. How does a person keep it together? I need to find some way to move forward. Not get swamped by these feelings/ideas and give up?
I volunteer dog walk at a shelter nearby. It’s an example of a solid, real impact that I can have on sentient beings that deserve better than what we’ve given them. I strive not to lose myself in logical formulations/philosophical roller coasters and just do some good for someone (dog) that needs it. People deserve more, too. But most people (or at least most voters) don’t appear to feel the same way I do or want the country to move in a direction I support. So, “Who are my countrymen?” countrypeople. They aren’t me. And I ain’t them. I don’t really understand the groundswell around me. I’m ignorant. Can I improve that somehow?
Maybe that’s what comes next, figuring out how to move forward in a country where the near majority (Trump didn’t actually win more than 50%) have different feelings/thoughts than you do. How do you feel part of this place even as feel so outside of it. For next time.
Signing off from planet Earth.