Plague Journal, Walking Without Hope
We walked tree lined streets. Springtime is the best time for a walk through Batavia neighborhoods. Homes are embellished by the growth of spring flowers, trees, the ornamental plants selected with care by townspeople with a love for working the soil. Walking with a friend, we discussed topics of interest, of concern to both of us. Each of us attempts to write, to wrestle with words to express our sense of life, a viewpoint of the time and place in which we live. After one has done one’s best, one remains uncertain about the ultimate worth of one’s effort. My friend is attempting to put into final form the book which he has finished. I’ve never written a book. Such a project is a long haul, akin to running a marathon. No less than life-long preparation is demanded to organize and lead the reader with one’s words to a intended conclusion. Every writer struggles with doubt about the final worth of the effort.
I thought of Nietzsche while listening to my friend express his underlying doubt about his writing project. Nietzsche recognized that his writing would be understood by a generation yet unborn.
“I know my fate. One day my name will be associated with the memory of something tremendous — a crisis without equal on earth, the most profound collision of conscience, a decision that was conjured up against everything that had been believed, demanded, hallowed so far. I am no man, I am dynamite.”
― Ecce Homo
We walked and admired the tree lined streets, the view resembling paradise was before us. We discussed global warming, the rise of immigration around the world due to desertification, areas no longer habitable, food insecurity, hunger. These conditions will effect Batavia, the towns here in the Fox River Valley.
Already the entire world is impacted by the covid 19 pandemic, the consequence of a lethal virus, an interconnected world, and population density. Supply chains are stressed due to the effect of the pandemic and our policy of lean, “just in time” manufacturing. Systems designed for, tuned for maximizing profit are fragile, without sufficient reserve to adapt to this shock. Retail shelves are empty of such things as grape nuts cereal, to lumber, to computer chips. (To read the NY Times article, How the World Ran Out of Everything, CLICK HERE.)
While walking, the concept was advanced that the time has come to do nothing, except listen to what the earth is telling us. “Do nothing” Eschew our ratiocination/doing in order to be quiet and to listen. What is the earth saying to us? What is the lesson? In all likelihood our predicament within nature is so complex, with so many linked, moving layers, — that human intelligence is insufficient to achieve a grasp of the “problem.” Is the unprecedented ice melt in Greenland related to the desertification in Central America? Yes.
This is not a “problem,” — the prospect of the demise of life on the planet and of humankind… A problem is a condition observable from a removed point of view. But we are on the inside of this. Humankind is an aspect of Nature, a tool wielding mammal, an eco-sphere changing species.
So what we must “do” is listen.
That is the concept we discussed as we finished our walk. I continue to be captivated by that thought.
As for a tune to “get us through,” this one will achieve our purpose…
After The Gold Rush
By Neil Young
Well, I dreamed I saw the knights in armor coming,
Saying something about a queen.
There were peasants singing and drummers drumming,
And the archer split the tree.
There was a fanfare blowing to the sun
That was floating on the breeze.
Look at Mother Nature on the run
In the nineteen seventies.
Look at Mother Nature on the run
In the nineteen seventies.
I was lying in a burned out basement
With the full moon in my eyes.
I was hoping for replacement
When the sun burst through the sky.
There was a band playing in my head,
And I felt like getting high.
I was thinking about what a friend had said.
I was hoping it was a lie.
Thinking about what a friend had said.
I was hoping it was a lie.
Well, I dreamed I saw the silver space ships flying
In the yellow haze of the sun.
There were children crying and colors flying
All around the chosen ones.
All in a dream, all in a dream
The loading had begun.
Flying Mother Nature’s silver seed to a new home in the sun.
Flying Mother Nature’s silver seed to a new home.