Enhance Your Calm, John Spartan
I came of age in the eighties and thus consumed a fairly steady diet of
impending apocalyptica laced with a voyeuristic fetishism. Well into the nineties, i was well
coached by media and entertainment that sooner or later (and likely
sooner) someone somewhere was gonna fuck something up royal, War Games defcon 4 style, and all of
us were going to hell in a handbasket. Aside from the
ever-present burning firmament fireball possibility of nuclear
annihilation, there was the ever-burgeoning hubris of our disposable
culture trashing itself into Escape from New York scenarios and/or a strain of Running Man type gladiatorial glee.
So, really, i don't understand why people like Bill O'Reilly or Greta Van Sustern still freak me out.
Diagnosis
Someone told me this last week that they think i am depressed. And who wouldn't be, they said, you know, what with everything that's going on for me. But I've been thinking about it for a long time, though, and if i am depressed, it doesn't feel like it did when i was depressed before. Mostly i feel really numb and paralyzed, not so much down and desolate.
I guess, in part, the symptomology is somewhat similar - there are things i just don't want to deal with, or even just can't deal with, right now. But noone really seems to realize the differences in root causes. See this isn't sadness.
It's terror.
Shaddup Already Cassandra
Welcome to the next 75 years of 'I told you so'. Technically it could be centuries, of 'I told you so', but I'm betting we probably won't make it past 2080, anyway. And i agree that job one in the war on warming is to arrest
the damage we've done at this point - seek to minimize further
emissions, and find renewable, clean energy sources. But honestly, I dont think those measures alone will actually help all that much in the long run. See, even if the entirety of humanity suddenly stopped emitting any and all greenhouse gasses at 3 o'clock this afternoon, your grandchildren will likely still be fighting their neighbors for water and resources after 2050, due to the tab we've already run up in just the last 50 years.
There is a key realization we are required to make if we want to survive climate change as a species. We have to realize that we are part of the system. Interventions that focus on reducing our footprint in the system will never be long term solutions. The system is changing. And as part of that system we too must change: We need to evolve thick, lizard-like scales in the place of our skin and totally re-engineer our bodily cooling processes.
Get to mutating, bitches.
Lessons of the Demon Car
During the great methcrash psychodrama fallout the summer of 94, when my friends and extended roommates all kinda went buggy at about the same time, facing a state of seemingly perpetual couchsurfing and student loan deferrals, i acquired a demon car. I got it for essentially next to nothing, which was exactly what i had at the time, so itz not like i had much choice. I've mentioned the tercel before, and detailed some of itz afflictions, but i don't think i explained that it was, in fact, a demon car.
I knew it was possessed from the moment i saw it. It had been in a bad front end collision, and had no grill. The radiator gleamed menacingly at the world, itz turning fan blades maniacally bared... Dont think in any way that it was a sad-looking beat-up car. No, it was a clearly dangerous car, ready to come up on you all mad max beyond thunderdome style with no heed to potential personal death or maiming. As i said, i had no real choice in the selection of the car at the time. In fact it pretty much came to me as a gift - i only had to pay to get it fixed enough to pass inspection. You can't look a gift car in the mouth, even if it is a demon car sent by netherspawn to kill you.
And in the life and death struggle of wills between us that would last for more than three years, i learned how to bind and control the maleficent auto, and occasionally even compel it to perform tasks of conveyance for me. That time taught me to be neurotically vigilant, in constant awareness of the fact that things were ready to go off the rails at any minute, devolve into a fiery crash, multilation, and/or expensive repairs.
More than 10 yrs later, even though i live in the city now and no longer need to own any car, i realize that the lessons the demon car taught me are still extremely important and relevant. Over time it taught me to just let go. When it would swerve spontaneously into adjacent lanes on the interstate, it reaffirmed for me that control is an illusion. When it decided it didn't need to restart after having been driven anywhere for periods longer than 45 minutes or on hot summer days, i learned to accept that plans change without warning, and that there must be bigger forces in the universe somewhere, who for some reason felt i needed to stay wherever i was for a little while longer. And the carbon monoxide leak that required keeping a window open as i drove served as a passive reminder that unseen forces, even (or perhaps most especially) neutral ones, were likely always lurking around to my possible detriment, and i had to look out for myself.
Lessons of the Demon Car Summarized:
- Let go
- Control is an illusion
- Plans change
- Look out for yourself