I’ve been told my entire life that this would surely be the year that the planet would catch fire and burn itself out of existence, taking all of us right along with it for the fiery ride. You have been too. But somehow, here I am at the ripe old age of 44, still alive, still doing therapy, still making fart jokes with my kid, still playing in a crappy band that no one listens to, still writing a blog that no one reads. Not to scoff at these claims though; I do believe climate change is real and that it could be the end of us all. I do have some fear of what the future of AI could look like. Nuclear war is a possibility. There’s great therapeutic power, though, in the Stoic idea of worrying about things when you need to worry about them and not shortening your life with worry before it’s time to do so. It’s what I do and it works phenomenally. You should try it. You really should.
But let’s be doomy and gloomy for a minute. What if I told you that the world was, in fact dying? What if I could assure you that in the near future, or at least at some point in your lifetime, you would suffer greatly and at length and that the suffering would end in the death of you, everyone you love and everything you hold dear?
I’m reminded of an ex-girlfriend who was from Venezuela. Early on in our relationship, her mother still lived there. As I’m aware, her grandmother and several other family members still live there. She described their lives there as impoverished and difficult and she was very saddened by the fact that they couldn’t yet or may never be able to immigrate to the US. One of the simple yet powerful things that always struck me about that was this: Someone’s granny lives there. Someone’s sister lives there. Someone’s brother, uncle and every other family member and every other relationship designation that exists still live there, in that place, that has been described to me as what might remain after the apocalypse. For now, they carry on. They still go to the store. They still sleep at night. They still go to the toilet and get together with friends and talk on the phone and check the mail and play with their kids. They suffer a great deal but for those who have lived through it, they continue on with their lives and work around the misery as best they can. Their lives are unpleasant to say the least but for now, they continue on with them.
When I was in about 7th grade, there was a guy (who we’ll call Brad) who was the first in my cohort to get in real trouble. I think he was selling drugs on campus or something. He was the first kid I ever knew to get expelled. After that, he just disappeared. In the back of my head there was this unchallenged assumption that if you got in that much trouble, you’d just be annihilated. Life would just cease. Imagine my momentary disorientation when that unchecked, set in stone assumption was debunked years later when I saw him on Facebook. After he got in the worst trouble I could think of at the time, he still had to deal with his parents and work through puberty and learn to drive a car and get a job and maybe find a romantic relationship and eat lunch. It’s easy to just unconsciously assume that when things get really bad in a place far away, or for people who have it really bad and then disappear that things just stop. But they don’t. And if and when they get bad for you, unless it kills you, your life won’t stop either. You may have to suffer through it.
Here’s where I again make the plug for Stoicism and Existentialism; It’s inevitable that America and maybe the world will sooner or later meet a fate as bad or worse than Venezuela or your life may end up worse than Brad’s was when he got in trouble. Even if the Brad-ian or Venezuelan version is not the one that ultimately comes to pass, some other version of suffering and death will. It’s inevitable. Stoicism asks “Can you live through it?” If the answer is yes, then accept your fate and carry on; maybe even learn to love your fate. It asks further, “Do you have any power over it?” The answer is likely “No” or at least very little. Stoicism replies “Then your duty is to treat it with indifference.” Existentialism asks “Will it kill you?” if the answer is yes, then that’s fine; it happens to everyone and you’ll get no special pass. If not this, then something else would have. Whether you die at 18 or 180, it was coming either way, so live your life as fully as you can, while you can, inside the limitations you have.
I have zero desire to live in an apocalyptic nightmare. Starvation is super lame. Zombies are annoying and I really don’t want to deal with them. I like it warm but the temperatures predicted by climate change sound too much even for me. I’m in no mood right now to deal with whatever version of Skynet that AI morphs into and I don’t see myself ever being able to deal with it. But I might have to be. And you might too. And there might not be anything either one of us can do about it but accept our fate and do the best with it we can. And that, my friends, is my message to you. The world may, in fact, be ending and it may be ending soon but it’s not ending today so don’t worry about it. When it does end though and when it really sucks while it’s ending, accept your fate and do the best with it you can. The sooner you can learn to do that, the better your life will be.
Unrelated book: A Matter of Death and Life by Irvin and Marilyn Yalom. Yalom is my favorite author of all time and my mentor by proxy. Through his books and the few times I’ve attended his lectures, I feel like I know him well. That being the case, this book where he and his wife narrate her ultimately fatal battle with cancer, was one of the saddest books I’ve ever read but I still recommend it to you.
Unrelated song: I’m not sure why I’ve been listening to this lately. Check out the album version of the song too but this live version is really good!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DhcG2Ko5osA
Brandon Peters, LPC 