I can’t decide whether to stop writing or do nothing but write. Let me explain.
So, the average life expectancy for men in the US is about 76 years. If that’s true for me, I have 19 years left. That will be 2038. And my hunch is that’s about when it will become obvious to all but the most obtuse that life, even in the “richest country in the world,” is getting nasty, brutish, and short for people of all races, regions, and (almost) all classes. There’s something about that convergence – one’s death and the decline of industrial civilization – that’s neat and tidy. But. One thing that makes the thought of death bearable is the knowledge that life goes on – that you’ve made a contribution to the future of the world – that the thing you are part of will survive, even though you don’t. Maybe via children and grandchildren, maybe via your work. Only a psychopath wants everyone else to die when he does. Or wants to die in a mass die-off. That’s what makes full-scale nuclear war so terrifying: not one’s own death, but everybody’s death. But here’s the rub: if you are a male American and you make it to 65, odds are you’re going to live past 84.* That would mean being an old man in a country that’s no country for old men. What did the old people do in Ukraine, when Germany attacked? Or when Russia attacked? They died, mostly. I’ve lived what is commonly called a “full” life. That is, I have already lived my life – already lived as long as human beings expected to live, for most of human history. And like Roy Scranton (“Learning to Die in the Anthropocene”), I sometimes try to regard myself as already having died – or, as the Roman euphemism was, “he has lived.” But in a way, I envy the people born today, who will be going into this maelstrom in their 20s. If anyone is going to survive, it will be them. If anyone is going to carry on anything resembling a positive human culture, they will be the ones. Perforce. If climate chaos or authoritarian rule, or both is all you’ve ever known, if you had no part in causing it, then that removes a lot of the affective and psychological baggage of someone who has to get used to it. It’s just your world; you figure out how to live, if you can. Young people are doing that all over the world, right now. Some people survived the fall of Rome. As did their children and children’s children. Whether their quality of life was anything to celebrate is another matter. All of this leaves me pulled in more than one direction. Part of me thinks, “This situation calls for more than just words – I’m typing while Rome burns. Get out there and – I dunno – do something!” But another part of me thinks, “What the hell can I do about it? There’s absolutely no indication that most people in the US are prepared to admit that climate chaos will affect them, let alone do anything to avert it, other than answer a question on a poll. Sales of SUVs keep going up, even as they now cause – what? – 60% of greenhouse gas emissions in the US. India and China race to catch up with our standard of living – and level of effluents – on a giant wave of sulfurous coal. Why not just read and write for as long as you can, if that’s what you want to do? Like the radio reporters in War of the Worlds, who continue to broadcast until they are overtaken by the fumes.” I think this conflicted situation is what they call “dark ecology.” In any event, if you’re anywhere near 60, it makes you think seriously about early retirement. It may be you don’t need as much in savings as you thought you would. And it may be you’ll have less time to enjoy life. It’s getting mighty hard to think you’re “building towards the future” – unless you’re building a storm shelter, maybe. ___________________________ * I guess that means there are a lot of stubborn old dudes out there who are balancing out the coronary disease, opioid overdoses, and gunshot wounds that this country is famous for.
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June 2021
Kristin Prevallet Author/Editor
I'm a writer & teacher in Lawrence, Kansas who actually believes the scientists. I wrote a book of poems called Of Some Sky that seems to have something to do with all this. |