Something Hopeful, Something Terrible, Something Sad, Something Funny, Something Weird: Part One
There are many ways to stare into the void.
Hallelujah, words! My writing on the Greater Forces continues, but remains unfinished. We’re taking a detour for now.
Just a reminder: If you like what you read, please share. And since I’m asking, I’m looking for a seasoned mentor, an editor with more faith in me than I can currently muster, and a collaborative community. Know a band looking for a lyricist? A literary agent?
I’m living on the edge of abject poverty, so these are big asks. This is my rain dance.
PART ONE: The Hopeful
I’m a “bad news first” kinda guy. The logic is simple: bad things can harm me, good things can’t. Danger must be dealt with presently. Good news is just a temporary blessing and if you’re not careful, the desire for it will blind you. My mindset is a gift of trauma, and I’ve had plenty in my 53 years on planet Earth. I have hypervigilance in spades. I’m not bragging. It’s a curse as much as a blessing.
But the howls for Hope are legion in these times so I’m throwing it down first as a preface. But don’t get too comfy. The hope I’m dealing is hard.
The three straw men of the Apocalypse are Doomerism, Pessimism, and Nihilism. We are quick to notch our bows with these accusatory arrows whenever someone utters critical thoughts that are repulsively bleak about the state of our humanly affairs.
The reasoning for these designations of damnation is the fear that somehow the “bad news” will suck the will of people dry with nihilism.
Bullshit. This fear is already the reality because we refuse to address root causes of our confluence of crises. We refuse to change. We attack those who ask us to imagine different ways to live. Possibilities are only acceptable if they do not challenge the foundations of our consensus reality.
When was the last time you found yourself aflame and did not act? Number the times you stood there and thought to yourself, “Well, shit. I’m on fire. Nothing can be done. I’m resolved to just burn, and to keep the conditions that set me ablaze in place.”
I’m here to tell you that collectively we choose this insane response every day.
Even those among us that are ringing the alarm bells and leading the shaping of policy, whether consciously or not, are moderating the peril. Either the real dangers are still somewhere in the future, or the answers lie in some centrist reconfiguration or retrofitting or expanding of our entrenched growth-based systems, or that they will be solved by some future Elon-tech. Most of the allowable conversation is a mix of all of these.
Stay calm. Keep the faith. Things have never been better. Nothing needs to fundamentally change.
What is more nihilistic than the refusal to address the root causes of our ills? What’s more pessimistic than continually assigning blame to the poor and the vulnerable and the powerless? What’s more radical than maintaining the status quo?
Greenwash and electrify all you want. Our current consensus reality is a doomed story. Damned. My hope lies in humanity itself.
The lie we’ve swallowed is that civilization as it stands, is the ultimate result of innate human nature. If we believe that civilization as we know and practice is the inevitable outcome of human evolution, the pinnacle sum of our vision and ambition, then humans are fundamentally greedy and violent. Humanity itself becomes the ill, and that dark mindset is the greatest threat to our survival.
Many think if there were just fewer humans, things would be fine (eugenics). Many of those that have the extraordinary means are building bunkers and compounds to ride out the collapse they financed (Libertarian rot). Where’s the Hope in these minds? Worst of all, some of us have decided one way or another that humanity is a cancer, and that leaves no hope at all. Zero. It’s not hard to find the theme.
The the true cancer is our culture—its most successful engine, Capitalism. Its present monstrous form, Neoliberalism.
Humans evolved as social creatures. It’s our primary strength, but that strength has a shadow side. If the social soil turns barren, the humans planted in it grow misshapen and struggle to thrive. They turn on each other, and play out all manners of cyclical dysfunction and exploitation and oppression and cruelty.
Put simply, they become self-destructive and recurrent atrocities are loosed—upon the land, upon the water, upon the sky, upon our kin, upon all other life with which we share the Earth. Living becomes a brutal occupation.
Humanity, as evolved as you and I, survived and thrived for tens of thousands of years before the birth of our civilization. It had vast cultural diversity, and experimented with a wide spectrum of social orders long before the single one that began approximately 10,000 years ago. The one that rules our world now.
Now we are all prisoners of the Culture of Empire.
Humans are pure potential, capable of the angelic to the demonic. Without stories of reciprocity and connection and reverence to each other and to nature, they exile themselves from the community of life. Sooner or later, it’s a death sentence.
We are in grave peril. Now. If you are hungry for true Hope, you must know your shadow first. Stare it right in the eyes. Then you must act.
This ladder is ours
This ladder is ours
We can be anybody else
Hold on to the fringe
Jump through from the past
—The Joy Formidable, This Ladder Is Ours
And Now Some Poetry
When I’m deep in the dark of my cave of self doubt, I truly begin to believe that I’m not a writer. I have to find proof outside my mind that I have actually written anything. Searching my computer, I found a handful of poems that I had completely forgotten. The file creation date for this poem is June 19, 2019.
THORN AND HORN Go ahead, throw the world at me I will weather its immensity I will surf the stormy travesty Of its infinite incredulity Don’t you know I was built for this? Forged from anvil and hammer for this? Even as it loads my heart heavy I will endure its savage gravity I will shift its weight into an advantage Meet its righteous pull with indignant rage Don’t you know I was built for this? Hewn from axe and sword for this? Submerge me and watch me emerge I will resist and defy its tidal urge I will strip clean its dressed seduction and lies Free the truths it’s caged, sunder its pride Don’t you know I was built for this? Constructed skin and bone for this? The buried unearth as thunder and fire I will remain, not matter how dire I will not surrender to its smothering No matter how dark the unraveling Don’t you know I was meant for this? Torn fur and fang from this? Don’t you know I grew thorns against its subjugation? Sprouted bull’s horns to skewer its domination? Mother Dragonheart groomed me for this Told me to tolerate nothing truthless To roar and caw at denial and injustice To champion those who are trampled by this Don’t you know? Don’t you know? Send your hordes I will dethrone all your Lords