A few months ago, I took a pause in blogging. The appearance of Donald Trump as President of the United States took the wind out of my sails, not so much Trump himself, horrid as he is, but Trump as a symptom and a symbol of ruinous decadence. It was like seeing an old friend suddenly getting horribly thin, or finding a loved one suddenly lost in depression, no longer taking care of their appearance, not washing, not changing their clothes.
One sure thing has come to me from from all of this. I am grateful that I have no children and thus leave no innocent grandchildren to face the world that is coming. I realize that those of us born right after World War Two, in either the USA or Western Europe, have lived to be elderly in a truly Golden Age of peace, prosperity and health that is more than probably going to disappear forever.
In the following weeks and months, I hope to write some sort of coherent analysis of some of the facets of this descent into chaos. For the moment I am collecting articles that my instinct tells me are relevant and that may help me to write something useful in the future. I am posting them to my twitter account. @David_Seaton, if you care to read them and draw your own conclusions.
In the meantime, the only way I can fully express the dread I feel is in poetry.
Today I leave you with this sample:
Futurology
The old and toothless of our tribe
Tell the tale
That before the beginning of time
Even before the mountains began to glow in
the dark
An orange baboon ruled the world
And the legend has it
That our land of tears,
Of ashes,
And of dust
Was,
Once upon a time,
A land of hopes and dreams
DS
3 comments:
Hello. Even though I myself don't blog publicly anymore I'm glad to see a few people like your fine self still making the effort.
When the decision became final I assumed that when I got older I would feel some measure of regret about not having children. I never imagined I would consider it to be the most significant thing I've ever done/not done.
I also marvel at my existence at this particular point in time, having grown up in a time of such prosperity and scientific discovery and now actually living to see it burn itself out.
How can it be that all the accumulated knowledge, all the technology, is just going to end up increasing the speed at which we do ourselves in?
And if people here in the U.S. are already losing their minds, what’s it’s going to be like in four or five years when the economy crashes or the horror of climate instability finally sinks in?
Sorry if I’ve rambled. Maybe I should just put it all on my own blog…
Wooow! I found your blog again after so long. I have so much catching up to do. Will be like a walk back into contemporary history. Wish you did podcasts.
I'm appreciate your writing skill. Please keep on working hard. Thanks for sharing.
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