Everyone wants to go to the party, but nobody wants to pay the piper. I generally believe that people are going to do what they say they plan to do. Sometimes, I am disappointed that people say they will do things, but choose to do otherwise, but mostly, I feel like people are creatures of habit. On one hand, during the beginning of the pandemic–and general illness of the population–so many climate crises were occurring in 2020, including the world being on fire. People were surprisingly unafraid as thousands of people and millions of animals lost their homes.
On the other hand, the politics of inequality in the United States rose to the surface, challenging what everyone thought would be a calm equilibrium forever. For some strange reason, the entire planet was shocked despite there having been so many protests throughout the world based on inequality. Well, now the chickens have finally come to roost, the cows have come home, and the party is over for the nation that created problems for several other countries, and then “saved” them. Personally, I think anyone who voted for the last delusion of democracy in the United States was also deluding themselves into thinking that the atrocities enacted on the entire world by this empire would never come to a head within this empire.
When one is accustomed to comfort, there is an incredibly naive belief that such comfort will last forever. Moreover, there is a very common misconception that consequences will come to everyone else, meaning that some people can keep on perpetuating the same harm. In truth, the media has spent far too long trying to make everyone afraid of one side or another, and when it was time to have some actual fear, people were exhausted. The media kept all the fear running rampant in all of our bodies, so the terrible consequences of ignoring the discomfort of others, thinking ourselves safe, and cosigning with harm surprised everyone. This is why when a mentally unstable clown and his pet psychopath decided to take over the government, not nearly enough people began to question if they actually meant what they said.
Ironically, when the presidential candidates were decided in 2020, I realized that I no longer lived in a democracy, and unfortunately, I was right. Kicking and screaming that any political leader is “the one” is almost the same on either side, and I have seen far too many people think that politics are akin to football games. Believing that everything would have gone right if another outcome had occurred is emotionally immature. Most liberals are willing to sacrifice the wellbeing of thousands of people if it means that the rules are followed. However, unjust rules within a profoundly immoral society are immoral and unjust. Living in comfort for decades does not change the effects that the mechanics of comfort have had on others.
Likewise, believing that everyone can just go back to some crazy time when there were no problems is emotionally disturbed. Just because people were better able to hide problems due to finite telecommunications does not mean that there were never issues that should have been addressed. There are also a bunch of irrational beings who cannot fathom that their inability to understand the lives of others is not the problem of those other people. Nobody is responsible for making sure that life is always understood; after all, I cannot describe the entire planetary socioecosystem, but it still has a right to flourish.
Essentially, I can see that human beings are grappling with a loss of control of other human beings and the planet, and too many of us are poorly handling it. No, the weather will no longer be “predictable” because we have all destroyed entirely too much to sustain anything healthy. No, continuing to build and produce without offering decent income to afford the construction and production is not an invitation to build more. Yes, people who have gotten away with being emotionally, financially, and professionally abusive and exhausting will have to either learn how to handle it, or learn to be alone. The end of the eras of enabling obnoxious individuals–on all levels–has cost us and the planet dearly, and there is no point being surprised at the piper shaking the invoice in our faces.
I am tired, and so is everyone else, and no single person is going to rise to the occasion. Demanding that everyone prop up a corrupt system or that everyone celebrate devolution is moronic. Smart people are going to be stopping in place, and developing strategies that incorporate the new realities. I will no longer listen to people saying that everything would have been happy if another outcome had occurred. I will no longer listen to everyone saying that the clown and the psychopath offer solutions. I will definitely not listen to anyone who claims to be surprised or devastated that the clown is clowning, and the psychopath is crazy. This entire empire has played stupid, non-confrontational, enabling, violent games, and we are about to win those prizes.
Chasing A Dying Empire 