By
virtually any standard, I've had a good year. I found a job with a
company that benefits from my strengths, has the potential to
help make the world better, and is improving my family's financial
condition. I'm getting healthier by eating smarter, and consuming
smarter by driving a more efficient car and considering the social
and environmental records of the companies that make what I buy.
Last month's election could have resulted in a rapid acceleration
toward oblivion, but it didn't.
Yet
I am nowhere near feeling happy, mainly because oblivion is still
ahead of us. The fire that pulled humanity out of the stone age is
beginning to engulf our world, yet we continue building and using the
equivalent of more powerful blowtorches. The recently completed
talks on climate change demonstrated that this is unlikely to change
before the firestorm
becomes self-sustaining
and unstoppable. Planning for the future is looking pretty
futile, except for deciding how to resist the
causes of our problems.
I've
recently felt overwhelmed to the point of frequently losing sleep.
For years, I looked forward to having at least as much knowledge,
understanding, and wisdom as I do now; answers to most questions come
much more easily, and the path to answers I don't have is typically
quite obvious. Bursts of insight that I used to celebrate because of
their rarity now occur as streams rather than bursts, and most
reliably when I'm facing a problem or a commitment; and I am
currently facing several of both.
My
life is a microcosm of the dying world we are a part of. I
accelerate just to keep from losing ground, yet that ground is
growing soft and fracturing beneath me because of the weight and
stress of too many of us doing the same thing. My instincts and best
judgment scream at me to slow down, to make the most out of every
experience rather than moving headlong from one to the next. I know
that if I take the time to know the ground, I can find ways to
stabilize it so it will be around when either I come back to it, or
someone else passes along more safely for my efforts. Left to my own
devices, it's what I prefer to do; yet I live in a society designed
and tweaked to make speed rather than substance, to grow at all costs
-- and all costs is what it will ultimately pay if it doesn't change
its goal.
For
years now, I've written about my struggle to repent for, and end, my
contribution to the sabotage of the world's future. In many ways my
happiness hinges on it. While better equipped, I am still weak.
Having some of the answers and taking some steps is good, but still
far from good enough.
