Two days ago, on Wednesday, it was my birthday. It was a relaxed day at home. I turned thirty-five, my wife did her best to celebrate it, and the world outside continued in its decline in this age of viral devastation.
That's a thing now. We're in a time of existential dread brought about by a virus which has, so far, killed over 50,000 people around the world and is still spreading amongst the ignorant and irresponsible, who fail to heed warnings from scientists and experts. We have been given shelter-in-place orders to limit or stop the spread of the virus, but a great many people are actively ignoring or defying this. This is our reality, a world in which a virus is killing us and stupid people are accomplices to it because they don't feel sick, hate being told what to do, or just can't grok how viruses work. The ignorant and foolish are the hammers which will shatter the foundations of our species.
Well, it looks like we made it. After so many years spent dreaming of a dystopian or devastated world we have finally achieved it. It's like my college English professor would say, if you aspire to something, good or ill, you will achieve it. He cautioning us by referring to mediocrity related to writing, though, and not the downfall of humans and their society.
It's a great time for people to see lies revealed, fallacies unveiled, the confirmation of the fragility of systems we took for granted, the confirmation of the ineptitude of leaders who should never have been, and how truly horrible and selfish our neighbors can be. It's a period in which we can and should learn so many valuable lessons, but I have sincere and powerful doubts about our ability to do so. The people of today are incapable of something so simple, useful, and intelligent, it would seem.
My natural pessimism and misanthropy are bolstered every day now. It doesn't feel good. It's like getting kicked awake when you're trying to sleep after not resting for years. Every negative confirmation is like an earthquake of sadness.
I'm trying to look up, though, to be more positive. I'm trying to do things which help my mind and take me away. I've been playing a bunch of video games. Thanks to these wonderful digital experiences I have been and continue daily to successfully escape. It's doing my sanity wonders.
I haven't expressed it here before, but I've been wanting to create and live in worlds beyond the physical for most of my life. One day, if it all works out, I would love to be a part of creating an alternate existence for humanity. In the worlds to come we wouldn't have fears like this coronavirus (the type of virus currently plaguing the species), and we wouldn't have to worry about leaving important decisions regarding supply and care to imbeciles who craved power and have thus far been woefully incapable of doing the work part required of people in their roles.
One day I will create, or help to create, a world, or worlds, in which we will be able to live the lives we need to live in order to satisfy our hearts and relieve our minds of the burden of existence which was forced upon us by chance. I have to be a part of such a thing, not because my ego demands it or because I feel like I'm somehow exceptionally equipped to do so, but because I want it to be so badly that every moment I am aware of such a thing not existing I notice that it's absence feels like a hole in who and what I am. Such a thing has to exist because it would help complete me. I need to bring about and confirm a better world to finish the being that is me, to be made whole.
Well, that's enough of that. My mad ramblings will continue some other time. Now I need to go back to living at home, in isolation from others, all so that I don't contribute to the spread of the virus through my flawed human body, which has no choice in playing its part in the distribution of disease and death. Sadly, we are apparently designed to break ourselves and each other, one way or another.
Until next time, kids, stay safe, stay healthy, help others, and dream of better times and worlds.
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