The Future’s Uncertain and the End is Always Near

With titles like that, it’s a mystery to me why this isn’t the most popular blog on the internet. I decided long ago that would be the title of my last post from Duluth. This isn’t it.

I’ve done something completely unplanned, which felt simultaneously stupid and necessary to me–I’ve signed a new year-long lease. Unplanned to the extent that I had to call the landlord to get a new copy of it because I’d thrown out the one I was sent a couple months ago (and I think the rent got raised $10 a month in the process), stupid because barring some unexpected income I’m only going to be able to pay about four months rent and then will have much less cash than if I left at the end of June, necessary because the thought of leaving here and more particularly of the life I was going to be headed to was starting to give me suicidal fantasies. So we’ll hang out here a little longer and see what happens.

I wrote that this isn’t the last post from Duluth, but that title also applies to my computer which now often requires a reboot or two before it runs at normal noise levels. And really it always applies to each of us, doesn’t it? We never know when the heart attack or the stroke or the bus will hit. I wonder what human society would be like if we all constantly acted on the knowledge that there might be no tomorrow. Would we be saints or sinners, tender or rapists? What do you think?

One thing that’s certain is that the immediate future is uncertain for this civilization. There have probably always been people like me on the corner with “The End Is Near” signs, but eventually in every civilization they’ve been right. Is our time coming soon? And for those of us who oppose what this civilization has done to what we value, to other species, to the human being, should we be trying to speed up that ending? There’s a long discussion (maybe more a lot of opinions than discussion) on that topic going on over on the Orion website following this column by Derrick Jensen. Join in, here or there.

A peek at one possible future: I’ve started reading Rick Bass’s new book, The Wild Marsh, and I think it’s going to be excellent except for the difficulty I have with the hunting passages. It’s much longer, denser, and more contemplative than any of his other books I’ve read so it won’t be a quick read. I’m also first in line for the library’s copy of the upcoming book about Rod Coronado when they get it, so there will likely be posts about each of those books. If the good lord’s willin’ and the crick don’t rise.