"I see many endings before us....some good. Most bad."
Clearly everything is connected. So sing the birds through my cracked window, a refreshing breeze pouring over my feverish body. It's the third day of a persistent stomach flu that has me bedridden while the wife and kids eat dinner at her parents.
But it's the singing of those birds, coupled with reading of the Hyperion Cantos, that has my mind wandering, perhaps not surprisingly, in darker direction. The Cantos was discovered by accident, as if such things exist, after my mind summoned the words "Hyperion C" when taking an elevated dose of vitamin C to, appropriately as I type this, avoid a cold.
The main theme of the Cantos revolves around the poetic collapse of an interstellar human civilization centuries in the future, after the destruction of Old Earth. The themes, over consumption, destruction of habitats on pristine worlds for the amusement of humanity, and a complete over-reliance on technology, seem to almost approach parody in their current relevance.
Poets are a regular feature throughout. And Yeats is heavily quoted, specifically his "The Second Coming:"
"Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity."
How shockingly relevant, this verse. The worst in our society are certainly full of passionate intensity. That fact cannot be denied, merely side-stepped. I, merely an observer in our perverse play, lump both political sides squarely into "the worst."
It seems we have failed to learn from the epic "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire," we all seem to know that this sad state cannot perpetuate
ad infinitum. Or, if you prefer later empires, "Tragedy and Hope." We are carefully checking the entire list of systemic failures, as if we are driving ourselves intentionally to extinction. Our mutually agreed societal equivalent of M. Gladstone.
I fear that is the goal. Worse yet, I fear that my generation's cynical bet that things can limp until after our children's generation is more of a roulette roll than a hand of Black Jack.
Oddly the thought that torments me now is an image of the pool earlier today, before my fever commenced. Ryan having a great time. Why should this image torment me? Because I see him following the same path as mine. The pool a microcosm of human transformation of a landscape into its personal playground.
Extended further into the future, I see him entering school and leaving with the same cynical disdain for all things human as I gained. Choosing a comfortable yet soul-destroying college and career path. All the while carelessly consuming as many resources as I once did, on the basis that humanity was doomed and that was damned fine with me.
Until I had kids.
How then to avoid such a future? The birds offer no advice. They certainly would not mourn our departure.
Shouting questions into the abyss and receiving no answer.
Status quo, then. How quaint.
