The Dread

Do you sense it? Are you aware of it? Can you feel it? Is it just within me, or is it actual, a palpable reality that exists outside of my own perception? There seems to be hanging over our country right now a genuine sense of dread for the future, an eerie, ominous feeling that what's just around the corner is something to fear instead of something to welcome. In the sixth year of our national tragedy, that feeling seems to be spreading throughout the population. As I said, is it just me?

Or do you sense it, too?

The Middle East crisis, of course, is the most immediately obvious cause of our unease. Iraq continues to seethe with violence and our young men and women, the best of our country, are caught up in the maelstrom, being killed or wounded or just emotionally eroded or shattered, sent on a disastrous mission by fevered, arrogant, visionary madmen, a mission for which they have neither the numbers or the equipment necessary for success. Israel and its enemies are embraced in a savage death grip, with no end to the horror in sight. Iran, led by anti-Semitic firebrands and fanatics, taunts the weak men in Washington, daring them to strike. The madmen are urging the weak, mentally unbalanced leader of our country to do just that. Pakistan arms itself and a worried India takes notice. The Saudi monarchy teeters on the edge of disaster. The birthplace of organized warfare seems ready to erupt into a conflict no one can stop. And the fierce, driven, Koran-intoxicated murderers of Al Qaeda are cheering it all on.

In our own country, our economy lives on borrowed money and borrowed time. Our country is piling up obligations that will crush our children and grandchildren. Tens of millions are drowning in debt they refuse to see or acknowledge, keeping thoughts of it at bay by buying more things they don't need, things that don't make them feel any better. Tens of millions are scraping by from paycheck to paycheck, praying that illness or accident doesn't strike them, because it will wipe them out. The hedge funds burn their way through whole countries, the pieces of paper wealth disintegrate,the corporations renege on the pensions, the houses sit unsold, the bills are coming due, and no one quite knows where the money is going to come from for all this. And how many people think their kids are going to live anywhere near as well as they the parents did?

Superstition and apocalyptic fervor grip millions. Science is rejected and scorned. Entertainment is valued above all. Ugliness of all kinds spreads, in the arts, in our daily lives, in our cities, in our everyday buildings. Reading is considered to be too much trouble by many. Conversation, political discourse, and intelligent argument are in a dismal state, corrupted by shrieking hatred, posturing, talking points, and sound bites. Faith is becoming once again a bludgeon to be used against others. People gather weapons for protection against unknown dangers. Fear of the "other" is pervasive. Politics literally makes millions of people sick, disgusted, and cynical. Civic pride seems a bad joke. Too many of our neighbors are strangers.

The environment of the earth itself is imperiled, and warnings grow from all sides that the planet on which we wholly depend is becoming less hospitable. What lies ahead--pandemic? Out of control warming? Mass flooding? Ever more ferocious storms? Who knows?

Our people are losing faith. In a recent national poll, of the two-thirds that felt this country to be on the wrong track, 80% considered the decline to be long term and permanent. And hanging over all this is the dread. The fear that no one is really in charge, that no one really knows what to do. The supporters of the madmen howl and bark their hatred for all who disagree with them. The storm is rising, the rocks are approaching, the ship is foundering. And the weakest, most inept, most incompetent, most mentally limited man in the history of our country is at the helm.

Do you feel it coming? The disaster that seems to be inexorably sliding down on us? Do you ever wish, in your darker moments, that whatever is going to happen will just happen, that we'll be IN the catastrophe instead of waiting for it? It's sometimes as if I'm saying, "Come on, do it!! Hit us!! Let us know what you look like." At other times, in bitterly laughing tribute to the nonentity that "leads" us, I want to shout "Bring it on!" And then I imagine the chaos and suffering that would ensue, and I am contrite for harboring such sentiments.

Am I being too dark? Too hopeless? Too pessimistic? I'm a history teacher. I've immersed myself in the study of human life for decades. And one conclusion I've reached is this: humans tend to create realties too complex for humans to handle or fully comprehend. They achieve great things, yes. They often show courage, love, compassion, resolution, and hope. In their individual lives they often succeed gloriously. But as a group, as a collectivity, they tend to fail. The theme of human history is tragedy. A life worth living can be wrung from the larger narrative of human life, but in the end we will not escape the fate of all previous civilizations. Civilizations can crumble over time, have a "soft landing", evolve, disintegrate, transform themselves into something new. This is the most hopeful possibility. Or they can be destroyed violently, in obscene spasms of brutality, followed by ages of hardship and the loss of much that has been arduosly and painfully learned. Which road will we take?

In the end, it will be up to every man and woman to make a stand, if only to defend those they most dearly love. Shall we fall into nihilistic, existential despair? Or, against all odds, will we try for the soft landing, the evolution instead of the explosion?

Absurdly, I still believe in trying. I still have hope that this dark time can be survived, and that, as it has always done, our species will survive

and pick up the pieces

and go on

and create a new future.