On Struggling to take “it” (EOTW) seriously, and ships that sailed

There is abyss-staring and then there is abyss-staring.

I am struggling to finish an overdue book. It’s running in quicksand. And part (only part) of the problem is I just want to say “why are ANY OF US taking this seriously?” I mean, you really have to be very wilfully and enthusiastically ignorant to believe that we will even slow the acceleration of the amount of carbon dioxide we are tipping into the atmosphere. We have had 35 years of promises and plans, and emissions are about 65% higher than they were back then. Atmospheric concentrations are surging.

And yet we still pretend – in the giant game of kayfabe – that it’s soluble, that it will be some kind of okay. And we ignore, by painting these lovely compelling pictures of the cat wearing a big ass bell, the reality. It is really doing my head in.

There is moral injury when we see something wrong and we don’t act to try to end it. We become complicit.

I am realising there is intellectual injury in going along with the noise, instead of being part of the signal. Or rather, I realised this all along and am just living in bad faith. (On this and so many other issues).

Uggh.

On the ship that sailed thing. I remember, it must have been either 1990 or the first half of 1991, at a film showing. The projectionist hadn’t turned up (there had been a miscommunication). And when he finally did, the organiser tried to hold a vote about among those present which of the very long films they wanted to watch, even though the projectionist had said he wasn’t going to stick around.

That’s what this feels like, I guess. We know it’s over, but we’re persisting in holding these empty “democratic” rituals that won’t have any effect on the stark realities.

Still, Australia won the cricket, and the cats have all sat on me at various points in the last 24 hours, so there’s that…