In this world, but not of it
“In short, when the non-human world manifests itself to us in these ambivalent ways, more often than not our response is to recuperate that non-human world into whatever the dominant, human-centric worldview is at the time.”
― Eugene Thacker, In the Dust of This Planet: Horror of Philosophy vol. 1
If you can tell me what the hell’s going on, you’re a better person than me.
Brexit, the climate catastrophe and food shortages — and that’s before we get to the government!
The last time it was like this my parents emigrated to South Africa to escape the parlous state of things. That’s not on my agenda, but I do wonder, still, if I’ve got enough life ballast to hold me up.
And yet we go on.
What else is there?
To disappear completely?
I don’t know.
But for those cheerleading a better future, trading inexorably on the soft lullaby of hope, I wish you well. Me: I don’t feel it. If anything, as might be clear from some of the things I’ve shared elsewhere, I’ve turned my back on all that ‘it will be alright’ mellifluous verbiage and instead, if only to bring humility to my thinking, have found myself exploring the depths of a more pessimistic world.
And, yes, for now, I’m OK but I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to finding it all so terribly hard and unable to make sense of any of it. It seems…well…too remote from my expectation of a world that, surely, should be able to live within its limited means and not tear itself apart.
Then again, the problem is, or this is the way I see it:
us — the whole of humanity.
Of course, that’s not true. Not everyone has decided to make it their life’s work to fall in love with the be all you can be trope and, instead, are not living a nice quiet life, without wishing for something much better.
I suppose in the end, like it or not, we have to accept our lot — the whole effing catastrophe.
Onwards dear readers, onwards.
— Julian
