…aaaaand back into the muck, like a pig to shit

I’ve been on a news diet for about 1.5 weeks after getting fairly depressed about the global climate situation. I was feeling inundated with bad news that I have felt has been coming down the pipe for decades, and I feel helpless to do anything about it, so why keep listening to the grim news if all it does is make me feel shitty?

^{This will be us soon.}

But you know me, I can’t stay away from the grim, the bleak, the hopelessness. Today I hit the BBC website and came across a collection of photographs from around the globe illustrating what a fucked month July was everywhere. I couldn’t resist, and now I’m in the thick of it again. That page is here in case you also want to feel bad.

^{Vacationing in a wasteland. It’s actually happening, right now. You can’t tell me this doesn’t portend ominous things, that this is a one-off, that things are going to get better soon.}

But I don’t feel as bad as I did the 1.5 weeks ago. I’m currently back in a place where I can laugh at the horror — at times like these, I like to think about the story of Nero fiddling as Rome burned, and I want to aspire to something like that. I want to be able to laugh at the absurdity of all of this, preferably right up until I too starve to death, am consumed by wildfire flames, or killed and eaten by my starving neighbour.

Fat chance. It’s easy to fantasize about staying chill and detached when the threat isn’t on your doorstep. I bet when the shit hits the fan, I will become as ragged and fucked as the next person, willing to do whatever I have to to protect Jenn, myself, and our shit. I’ve always wondered if we’d appreciate being alive more than we currently do, if existence would feel more vital if it was threatened each and every day, like that of a prey animal out in the wild. I don’t think it will though, I imagine it will just be far, far scarier.

Ps, I’m currently reading The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I used to think the end of human civilization would look like Mad Max but now I think The Road is a more accurate depiction. Ash everywhere, starving people becoming cannibals to survive, everything dead, grey, bleak. No moments of joy anywhere. Mad Max had too many hot rods and fun, wild costumes. No one will have the resources for that shit when fire has razed everything.

Sleep well.