We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark: the real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.
Plato
We are living in the Anthropocene age of anxiety (and based on the term we’ve only got ourselves to blame). Consider the increasingly interesting times we find ourselves in — through our collective efforts as a species we get our very own geologic period and it could very well be the last historically-speaking if things follow their logical course.
Irreversible climate change, dramatically rising sea levels, over consumption, gross wealth inequality, the sixth species extinction and our own unchecked population growth is inching the Doomsday clock uncomfortably close to midnight.
And what are we doing to counter this movement? Ignoring it mostly. For those wealthy enough to sit atop the Maslow hierarchy of need, escapism is a must. Reality TV, Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality, YouTube reality, porn reality, pharmaceutical reality — anything but reality.
Given the choice, most people would prefer to be lit than woke.
But what about sleep? A place to dream perhaps? A brief daily respite from daily worry? Well possibly so for babes and small children, but for most people, the great balm of sleep has now been infected by a rumbling, yawning abyss of anxiety and existential threat.
After waking from uneasy dreams, our everyday reality is characterized by a cognitive dissonance, from which only now it seems, we are finally waking up.
Does it not disturb you that every plastic wrapper you discarded will last longer on this planet than your mortal remains?
When you sit in a traffic jam railing against other drivers on your way to work, does it ever occur to you that you are part of the same problem?
Do you realize that dramatic sunset you traveled thousands of miles by plane to see is illuminated by smoke particles from fires burning across the planet?
Despite a growing consciousness, the general reaction is still a collective meh, or that laced with background anxiety. Just suck it up and move on — there’s nothing to see here, except on Insta.
This week schoolchildren in their thousands around the globe will step back from lessons to protest against this elephant in the room, and rightly so. Their future, however salvageable now, is quite literally at stake, so boycotting school as protest en masse is an efficient way to get the attention from their tone deaf elders.
While many will try to discredit her, the one young woman protest of Greta Thunberg in Sweden has become a real thing among her peers and even decision-makers are taking note. Her long accusing stare, methodical English pronunciation and simple forceful message emphasizes the seriousness of our situation. It’s refreshing to see wisdom and determination literally pushing up from below and taking others with it.
Hope is still far off but action beats apathy and cognitive dissonance. And make no mistake, like all protests, the apathy of the many creates a strong gravitational pull. But something now so pressing and still potentially salvageable (if we are wise) after such long foolishness, must be done. The children cannot wait because their time will not come without engaging their rawest will to live in a better future scenario than the one we live now.
On my way to taking my youngest daughter, aged 11 to school I explained the issues around the protest and her only question was: ‘Will there be any good left for us?’ Given the facts, it would be soul crushing to know that coming generations will know nothing but loss and degradation. Is it better to embrace action or be wracked by anxiety and fear? I would argue that anxiety is both a symptom and an amplification of these times but like children, we must learn not to be afraid of the dark and to step purposefully with them into the light.
We may not succeed but we may yet leave a more positive legacy. We should not forget we are all made of space dust but that our own creation on earth, plastic is more persistent.
