It's a weird time for me right now. I feel like my personal trajectory and that of society are intersecting, but one is on the way up and one is on the way down. Things in my life are going pretty well -- I have a great family and friends, a good job, a nice house, and enough time and money to indulge most of my hobbies. I get to play trivia, make and solve crossword puzzles, listen to great podcasts, and workout regularly. I get to lie next to my beautiful wife each night and watch my beautiful children grow up. I get to sit on the porch of the house I own and eat good food and sip cold beer with people whose company I enjoy.
And yet I live my life feeling an underlying anxiety for the state of society. It's not like I'm constantly sad or angry or anything like that (on the contrary, I'm happy and laid back by nature); it's more like there's always something in the back of my mind nagging me -- a thin but extant pall cloaking my mood at all times. And it has to do with two things: the resilience of white supremacy and our failure to act on climate change. Every time I start to feel too good, one of these things rears its ugly head. Last weekend it was the former, obviously, with two mass shootings, at least one of which was carried out by a wacko white supremacist. But even before that news broke I was already in a funk because a friend told me climate scientists project that by 2050, which is not all that far away -- my oldest child will be five years younger than I am now in 2050 -- DC will have 40 days a year in which temperatures reach over 100. That's insane. Currently we have around seven and that's way up from "normal." We're cooking the planet, and half the country is either in denial about it or doesn't care. The steady warming of our climate is not as viscerally jarring as our seemingly biweekly mass shootings, but it's a much grander and less tractable problem to solve -- especially when a lot of powerful people don't want to solve it.
I do this thing a lot where I'm thinking an unhappy thought and then I move on to a normal thought, and then I forget momentarily what the unhappy thought is, but I do remember it was unhappy. Then when I actually remember it, it's either a relief because it's something trivial -- the Seahawks lost -- or it's a stressor because it's something serious -- my friend told me they have cancer. These days, I have that going on constantly, but the final remembrance is never a relief.
But, nobody gets to live a stress-free life. There is no perfect spacetime in history to be alive, and there probably never will be. We struggle along, subject to the cruelties of our day, and eventually the sun will burn out. I haven't died of bubonic plague; I haven't been displaced from my homeland; and my teeth haven't rotted out of my mouth.
Here are some more things I have going for me at the moment.
And yet I live my life feeling an underlying anxiety for the state of society. It's not like I'm constantly sad or angry or anything like that (on the contrary, I'm happy and laid back by nature); it's more like there's always something in the back of my mind nagging me -- a thin but extant pall cloaking my mood at all times. And it has to do with two things: the resilience of white supremacy and our failure to act on climate change. Every time I start to feel too good, one of these things rears its ugly head. Last weekend it was the former, obviously, with two mass shootings, at least one of which was carried out by a wacko white supremacist. But even before that news broke I was already in a funk because a friend told me climate scientists project that by 2050, which is not all that far away -- my oldest child will be five years younger than I am now in 2050 -- DC will have 40 days a year in which temperatures reach over 100. That's insane. Currently we have around seven and that's way up from "normal." We're cooking the planet, and half the country is either in denial about it or doesn't care. The steady warming of our climate is not as viscerally jarring as our seemingly biweekly mass shootings, but it's a much grander and less tractable problem to solve -- especially when a lot of powerful people don't want to solve it.
I do this thing a lot where I'm thinking an unhappy thought and then I move on to a normal thought, and then I forget momentarily what the unhappy thought is, but I do remember it was unhappy. Then when I actually remember it, it's either a relief because it's something trivial -- the Seahawks lost -- or it's a stressor because it's something serious -- my friend told me they have cancer. These days, I have that going on constantly, but the final remembrance is never a relief.
But, nobody gets to live a stress-free life. There is no perfect spacetime in history to be alive, and there probably never will be. We struggle along, subject to the cruelties of our day, and eventually the sun will burn out. I haven't died of bubonic plague; I haven't been displaced from my homeland; and my teeth haven't rotted out of my mouth.
Here are some more things I have going for me at the moment.
- I got to visit my family and friends in the PNW a few weeks ago, mainly the former. Before everybody had kids, I would split my time between UP (family) and Seattle (friends) roughly 50-50. Now it's like 90-10. I spend most my time with my boys and their closest (age-wise) cousin Lil' Q. I'm lucky if I get a night and a day to spend with my pals. I'm not complaining, just saying. Overall, it was a great trip.
- I'm still the wrestling champion at my gym (self-proclaimed). I have yet to be bested in any live drill in the class. A week ago I got a pretty good challenge from a kid in his late teens or early twenties who said he had been wrestling since he was in grade school, but ultimately I got the better of him too. I kinda sandbagged him. I went really easy during warm-ups -- I always do, because I'm old and can't go full-out the entire class anymore -- and then I turned it on when we went live. He was pretty pissed after class -- at least in my head he was. In actuality, he might not have cared much at all.
- My oldest son is getting really smart, especially when it comes to animals. The other day a friend was over, and he pointed out a Pileated Woodpecker in my yard. I said I didn't know what that was, and he said it was a woodpecker with an identifiable red head. I told him he should tell Lil' S1 about it, so when he saw him he said, "Hey Lil' S1, I saw woodpecker in your yard. One with a bright red head." And Lil' S1 replied, "Oh, that means it's a Pileated Woodpecker."
- On Wednesday, S took the kids to her parents' new place in Florida for almost two weeks. I miss them already, but it's so nice to not be awoken at 6:00 am every morning. Before I had kids, I didn't consider just waking up and going to work on my own schedule a privilege, but it so is.
- Atlanta, the only TV show I'm watching regularly right now, has gotten really dark and surreal, and I'm loving every minute of it. It's kinda like hip-hop David Lynch. I have a man-crush on the actor Lakeith Stanfield and a crush-crush on the actress Zazie Beetz. The only problem with it getting so bizarre is that S is losing interest. It's not real her bag. In general our weirdness-versus-enjoyability graphs are correlated in opposite directions, and so it's hard to find shows we both like.
- I had a dream last night in which I went on a major bender, and then I woke up with cottonmouth and thought to myself, Shit! I'm gonna be hungover all day. But then I remembered that I didn't have a drop of alcohol last night -- I was just thirsty -- and thought, Yes! I actually won't be sick today. At least, I have that. I'm not sick today
Until next time...
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