How Soon Is Now?

Surely tomorrow can’t be worse. Let today be as bad as it gets. No more explosions, no more plagues, no more fires. Just … no more. The stupidity, the hate, the futility of even trying, I might as well scream at a forest fire. I'm okay, my friends and family are healthy and safe. I even have a job and a place to live. But what about tomorrow, and the day after that? There's always someone worse off than you, and there's always something horrible over the next hill. I think with no end in sight, and auguries of horror to come, today is the day to give up. Let's tune out and watch puppies. If today is the first day of the rest of my life, I don't want it. I don't need it.

Watching the news last night, my thoughts could be summed up by "sweet fuck, what's next?" I feel like the only ones who care are the ones most vulnerable, least able to enact the change we all need. The first watershed of my memory is the explosion of the Challenger in 1986. Others may pick a different date, but that January was the first time I fell down an emotional elevator shaft. Not depression, but free falling unknowing. Now every day feels like a crumbling cliff. I’ve long believed that our civilisation arced unsteadily towards justice and fairness. That gave me an excuse to not worry too hard about the future. People of good conscience would come together to steer the world toward a brighter Horizon. Not tomorrow, not in my lifetime, but someday, inexorably.

How lazy was I to believe that I didn't need to put in any hard work. Everything works out in the end, except it doesn't. I don't know if humanity trends toward good or ill, but I sure feel like we're fucked. Most of all, I feel like we deserve a break. But we're not gonna get one, are we? Tomorrow is going to come, and we will keep standing up to what we can't stand for. I recognise my privilege being white, male, educated, affluent, loved, cared for. There's no over-arching moral imperative to make the most of that privilege. It's so tempting to tell myself that my tiny contribution makes no real difference, and isn't worth the effort. Isn't worth losing friends, not worth the dread, the rage, the fear, the uneasy dreams. Learned helplessness in the face of an impossible task is a mental cancer that limits your world and erodes your soul. I'm a brain in a jar. The future of my imagination is larger than I'll ever see, and I can talk bigger than I'll ever achieve. Some of that is bravado, yes, but perhaps even my most obnoxious loudmouth pronouncements are rooted in the belief that I have to do something, say something. What difference do I make? Imperceptible, next to nothing. But without that effort, without even a lie that just maybe I could help, I've given away whatever I had.

I'll have a whiskey please, here's to tomorrow.

TRACK 01 "Marginalized," Rheostatics INDEX  02:21:35

TRACK 02 "Let Down," Radiohead INDEX  05:53:23

TRACK 03 "J-TREE," Gang Gang Dance INDEX  10:52:49

TRACK 04 "Colour Line," Asian Dub Foundation INDEX  16:43:57

TRACK 05 "Io," Zammuto INDEX  20:45:60

TRACK 06 "Exterminator," Primal Scream INDEX  23:20:59

TRACK 07 "War Pigs," Black Sabbath INDEX  29:10:41

TRACK 08 "Retaliation Suite," Thievery Corporation INDEX  37:07:67

TRACK 09 "No Need for a Leader," Unknown Mortal Orchestra INDEX  39:54:39

TRACK 10 "Melt the Guns," XTC INDEX  45:37:02

TRACK 11 "Goddess," Mark Sandman INDEX  52:11:06

TRACK 12 "Fear Country," T Bone Burnett INDEX  56:04:31