As I get older, I am finding that the certitude that has marked most of my adult life is slipping from me, by degrees inexorable, leaving me at times fearful and unsure, both conditions being quite unfamiliar. This is a bald statement, to be sure, but if I am honest, it is also a truthful one. I have noticed this effect only through indirect observation: where decision-making was once a relatively effortless process, without much in the way of doubt or hesitation (I allow myself to be wrong, but never indecisive), of late it seems to take longer for me to see the appropriate choice, beset as I seem to be by doubt, confusion, and my own version of the soul-rending horror known as 'paralysis through analysis'.
There are just so many choices. The predicament facing humanity has many, many causes, arising from factors both involuntary and deliberate. When assessing the hows and the whys of those factors, it is extremely difficult to understand the process of our imminent arrival at a most hellish destination. Determining a response to that arrival, down here in the mud where most of us live, is proving to be most troublesome.
I have spent a greater portion of my life, then, achieving the ability to precisely and accurately fail to formulate a useful plan.
I have a satisfactorily exquisite insight into the workings of the modern nation-state, but I do not know how to farm. I understand international economics, and can explain the difference between the Chicago and Austrian economic schools of thought, but I really do not understand how to butcher a deer. Ask me anything you like about the social underpinnings of the military and how oppression is fostered by the banks, but if you need to know where the best wild berries usually are to be found, you'll need to ask someone else.
I can articulate so much about how we got here, and why the solutions to our problems will not be found in better solar arrays, or more efficient batteries, or wind farms, or high-density communities instead of cities.
I have made it my business to understand the meaning of liberalism, the intricacies of stock markets, the fallacy of popular elections, the curse of trade unions, the destructiveness of entitlement mentality. I understand economies of scale, and the relation between complexity and fragility, and why organisation is necessary for survival.
I know how we got here, and have some ideas about similar outcomes can be avoided in the future, if there is one for humanity.
None of this is useful to me, however, if my son starves because I could not feed him.
I had hoped that all this knowledge would be of use, to explain and articulate, to illustrate and shed light, to exemplify and elucidate. Questions would be asked, once the smoke had cleared, and I would have answers.
It all seemed so sensible, so worthy, to be able to explain what had happened to us, why the switches on the darkened walls no longer brought forth the light, why the toilets did not flush, what the big glass-fronted boxes in so many kitchens were for.
To be able to keep on keepin' on did not seem enough. Simple survival was not sufficient. There had to be an ability to express why, to provide an answer to the questions and accusations. Someone had to know what had happened, how and why it had happened, so that the lessons were not lost in the smoke and fog of despair.
Then my son arrived, and I now fear that my efforts have been in error, that I have wasted the chances I had to be better able to live on, to provide, to foster, to care. I fear that I have been remiss in my studies, that more practical skills would have been the more prudent choice, that there is so much I do not know that I should as a parent.
I fear that the darkness ahead will test me on things I did not study for. And the musings or ravings of all those who have gone before will be as nothing in the simplistic face of starvation.
Monday, August 27, 2012
Friday, August 17, 2012
The end of some things...?
The year is beginning to wind down, though the sun is still warm and the days gracious and the wildlife active. Despite the summer fun still to be had, I at least can feel the turning of the season, the hush that is just starting to creep into view, like a backdrop poorly-lit. It might be my imagination, to be sure, but I have learned that such things are too easily disregarded in the full light of day, usually at one's peril. So I persist in my conviction, even as I enjoy the season and make use of the time available. What else is there to do?
My wife and I were discussing things the other night, and I expressed how odd it was to be here, finally, with 2012's end in sight, this thing that has at least partially informed a great many of our decisions for the last 14 years, ever-present, always hovering at the back of our minds, whispering 'Don't forget...'. And here we are, the last few months before the culmination of all those plans, endless discussion, miles of research, and several relocations.
It is a strange feeling in a strange place, but we have lots to do and to occupy our time. Our son just turned a year old, and we are having such a blast with him that the world outside has lost some of its menace, at least for the present. That sounds a little weird, for there is much to be concerned with beyond the walls of our life, but so much of what we might face is either far away, or imaginary, or false, or a contrived scheme to make people afraid of each other, that we simply don't have the inclination to worry about it. What will be, will be, and there is little we can do to arrest or divert it. We can only do the best we can, for ourselves and our son. He will have to deal with in fact what his parents have spent a long time dealing with in theory, and so his path will look very different from ours. We are intent, however, on ensuring that he will have the tools he needs to respond to the coming changes in a positive and useful way. Indeed, we have already begun this process...
Nevertheless, we are increasingly concerned by the things we see around us, and in my darker moments I notice potentials that give me pause when I consider the future. So much of what is happening is needless, and there are so many things afoot that are considered problems and threats that are not, in fact, either, while the real threats go unremarked and unexamined. It is these things that will prove our undoing, societally speaking, since they constitute overwhelmingly the power to destroy the whole of human artifice, or at the very least, to render what might remain irrelevant and without potential.
Perhaps the Solstice this year will pass like any previous one, without event of note. That will not, however, clear the slate; it will simply mean the timetable has shifted, that the equation has been re-balanced with different terms. The systemic, endemic, eternal problems besetting humanity will not have been resolved, but their unfolding merely re-scheduled. We know this, and we are saddened by this, but we will continue to love our son, each other, and the Earth, for as long as we are able. For the rest, each shall be addressed in its turn, according to need, as required, in a calm, precise, military manner. And that shall have to be sufficient.
My wife and I were discussing things the other night, and I expressed how odd it was to be here, finally, with 2012's end in sight, this thing that has at least partially informed a great many of our decisions for the last 14 years, ever-present, always hovering at the back of our minds, whispering 'Don't forget...'. And here we are, the last few months before the culmination of all those plans, endless discussion, miles of research, and several relocations.
It is a strange feeling in a strange place, but we have lots to do and to occupy our time. Our son just turned a year old, and we are having such a blast with him that the world outside has lost some of its menace, at least for the present. That sounds a little weird, for there is much to be concerned with beyond the walls of our life, but so much of what we might face is either far away, or imaginary, or false, or a contrived scheme to make people afraid of each other, that we simply don't have the inclination to worry about it. What will be, will be, and there is little we can do to arrest or divert it. We can only do the best we can, for ourselves and our son. He will have to deal with in fact what his parents have spent a long time dealing with in theory, and so his path will look very different from ours. We are intent, however, on ensuring that he will have the tools he needs to respond to the coming changes in a positive and useful way. Indeed, we have already begun this process...
Nevertheless, we are increasingly concerned by the things we see around us, and in my darker moments I notice potentials that give me pause when I consider the future. So much of what is happening is needless, and there are so many things afoot that are considered problems and threats that are not, in fact, either, while the real threats go unremarked and unexamined. It is these things that will prove our undoing, societally speaking, since they constitute overwhelmingly the power to destroy the whole of human artifice, or at the very least, to render what might remain irrelevant and without potential.
Perhaps the Solstice this year will pass like any previous one, without event of note. That will not, however, clear the slate; it will simply mean the timetable has shifted, that the equation has been re-balanced with different terms. The systemic, endemic, eternal problems besetting humanity will not have been resolved, but their unfolding merely re-scheduled. We know this, and we are saddened by this, but we will continue to love our son, each other, and the Earth, for as long as we are able. For the rest, each shall be addressed in its turn, according to need, as required, in a calm, precise, military manner. And that shall have to be sufficient.
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