More and more I keep hearing people resigned that "the world is ending" from Lady Gaga's portion of the Superbowl halftime show, to the increasingly absurd dichotomies in the United States' politics, to the doomsayers regarding nuclear proliferation, climate change, and AI. I'm no one to talk honestly because I've been internally obsessed with impending apocalypse for almost as long as I can remember. At 51, I see now the wisdom in blurring my focus, living in the moment, and trusting only in how much I don't know. But we really do manifest what we focus on, and it's obviously time to change direction.
We need to focus on the sustainable.
When I was a kid, I bought a book of Nostradamus' Prophesies. It included the original French which I studied in school so it was a kind of practice to really delve into these, but it also the English translations so I could check my work. I remember the dread I felt as I read how the "city of hollow mountains" would "plunge" into a "cauldron." This was years before the World Trade Center sunk.
I was obsessed with the notion that I would witness an inescapable impending ubiquitous disaster. I spent hours in those and other pages like those. I traded the depression of my youth for the anxiety of my adult life and rarely landed in a moment except when I taught something useful to a student or wrote something touching to another soul. The only thing to ever even slightly assuage my fears was my Granny telling me a story. She said that she remembered when she was a little girl, that she and her mother were walking in Times Square and one of those men with the signs and the bells was ringing and loudly proclaiming that the end was near. My Granny, then a little girl tugged on her mother's skirt and said "Mommy, do you think that's true? Is the end of the world coming?"
Granny, youngest in her family, told me that her mom's face sunk darkly. She glanced at that man, stopped, and leaned down on her knees for a moment. That's when Granny's mom, my great grandmother, thought about it and slowly shook her head and admitting that it was possible. It sometimes seemed inevitable and one could never know for sure. Perhaps the end of the world was coming. "But you know something?" she said, "I just don't think so."
"Why?" my nervous little Granny asked as doubt betrayed her entire countenance.
"Because as much as it could be, that we never know? Men have been yelling and ringing bells like that since I was your age."
I now have 2 beautiful teenage boys, and a niece, almost 22, struggling to find places in this world. A mic drop moment like that rarely lands with any of them, (They'd never read this) so I try to keep my own spirits up and do as best I can to tend to theirs. I teach literacy to middle and high school kids from low income neighborhoods in the South Bronx. I'm an Xer possibly about to escape by the skin of my teeth from a tier 6 death sentence only 2 years late from a life's work as a public school teacher, despite starting as a public high school drop out. And I'm 28 years into a love union that was literally illegal when we first met.
I've seen the world embrace love and hope, and I've seen the world endure danger and trepidation. It's true that the only thing that doesn't change is change. But when I say we must manifest a different direction, I mean more than that fact that we cause our circumstances as consequences. And I mean more than we create our own reality. I mean it's time to know this is all everything and all of us.
Every child we dismiss as a shame, - unloved, accidental, or expendable; every meal we consume some tortured animal; even every microbe we exterminate with poisons to protect the crops we clear for our exploding population - unsustainable. It's easy to sink into a boiling cauldron of despair, or freeze from excessive escape fueled by rampant anxiety. What can one do and how much do we hate the ones who don't love, and... But, we could also just stop.
I've seen that too. We've all seen the world stop spinning the same metaphorical discs on sticks. There was a time when streets were quiet, until uniformingly rauctous with applause for the few we relied on and commended for bravery that killed no one. Perhaps the men with the footballs won't blow up the world if they have any reason for hope. Perhaps we can impart that to each other in ways that are just as genuine, eclectic and plentiful. Perhaps, if we just hang on a little longer, explore our own hearts, and beliefs with openness and honesty, we'll communicate pure intentions and complete, sustainable designs for a future.
If we do that, perhaps that will be the wisdom we pass to the next species we empower, and they will convey to their youngest dependents the notion that it could indeed all end, but it might not. And that would be a nice story.