As I sit here typing this early morning—it’s just me and my ever-faithful dog awake—I think I’ve figured out one of the key components of my ongoing depression. The fact of the matter is that I don’t have much hope for the future. I’m sure I don’t need to tell you all the fucked up shit going on in America today—the country that I live in seems to be the greatest force of evil these days.
I write this reflection on the anniversary of terrible day, the day that the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and I can’t help but think that this really fucked everything up. I remember reading a science fiction short story discussing the nature of Evil in the world, linking the existence of God with quantum mechanics. The whole essence of modern physics lies in the concept that the observer must be taken into account, and one of the popular laymen ideas is that maybe the observer which makes reality real is God. The story discusses the age old question: if God is omnipotent, why is there Evil in the world? And the author makes the case that one of the most Evil things that happened in the 20th century was the dropping of atomic bombs on civilian populations. And he figures that God must have blinked—otherwise these atrocities should never have happened.
But as rampant global capitalism continues to desecrate the planet, and as the neverending War on Terror™ rages in Iraq and on the border between Israel and Lebanon, I can’t help but feel that I am inexorably doomed. Whether it will be by drowning because of global warming and rising sea levels, or whether it will be because of nuclear holocaust, that really is the question. (And macabrely, I realize that a nuclear holocaust—by bringing about a nuclear winter—would actually neutralize global warming.)
So it is with a heavy heart that I gaze upon children, and especially infants, wondering if there is any future for them to build upon, or if the human race is hell-bent on self-extinction.
I want to be hopeful, but it’s pretty damn hard.
I keep telling myself that the end doesn’t matter, it’s how I get there that does. So even if the world as we know it is destined to end, the little things I do in life still matter. But with such a gloomy big picture as the backdrop, I’m seriously struggling.
I don’t necessarily need someone to tell me that it’s all going to be OK, that there is some kind of solution to the problem of Evil in the world. All I need is something to hope in, something to look forward to. Without that, however tiny that thing may be, without hope, without the possibility of things getting better instead of getting worse—even if I don’t have a clue what is going to happen next—without hope, then I might as well be dead already.