Oh, my goodness, the world is so messed up. It’s enough to make me want to go off somewhere and forget about it all.
I can do that now. The work I do is portable. I could live at the beach or in a mountain cabin. No one would care.
That may sound like the musings of someone who is a little depressed, or of an old guy viewing his mortality. They’re kind of the same thing, I think.
I wonder how I made it this long without getting discouraged. The world isn’t objectively worse off now. Were not in the middle of the Depression or WW II. There’s a lot of poverty, a lot of economic inequality, but by and large more people around the world are better off than ever. Climate change is coming at us like the asteroid at the dinosaurs, that could be worse.
When I was young, two things were different—about me, not the world. First, I was boundlessly optimistic, on behalf of myself and mankind. Second, I was busy. Working, raising a family, all that nose-to-the-grindstone stuff. I took Watergate and Reagan in stride. When the Berlin Wall came down, I said, “Of course it did. That kind of repression never lasts.”
But some kind of repression is always with us, it seems. I don’t need to give you a list. Everyone has their own. We are beleaguered by the Democrats or the Republicans, the right or the left, corruption or political tyrants.
The world is the same, but I’m different now. I want to be hopeful, but I’m chastened by the realization that human nature, in all its glory and greed, is unlikely to change. And so the world, fundamentally, is unlikely to change.
We are born egocentric. It’s the way we survive. It’s too bad we have to grow up. It was a lot cheerier in that long-ago world of just me and endless possibilities.
This is such a poignant and interesting post, McCord Clayton! I think a LOT of us baby boomers are less optimistic now. I certainly am! I always thought that the world, over all, was swerving toward justice, as MLK envisioned. I feel deeply anxious about humanity, which is so (and has always been), by and large, inhuman and lacking in compassion. All I can say is that this is a time in which we have to do the best we can --- maybe the Stoics can help us! I still believe in the power of individual people, and of whole groups of people, to effect good change; and I believe in the power of art and of visionary organizations to help. I and millions more are with you in the struggle!!
ReplyDelete