When I was in my early teens, I never expected to live as long has I have. In fact, I believed that there would be very few if any humans alive by now. Being a kid on the tail end of the cold war could have that kind of effect on you. It was not beyond my comprehension that at anytime the world could descend into a nuclear holocaust that would wipe out large chunks of the global population. Not only that but turn much of the planet into a radioactive wasteland. It just seemed like the inevitable conclusion to history. And this was long before I tried drugs.
Now I'm not so certain and the fact that I'm still alive or not roaming the wastelands with some sort of high-technology aware tribe still surprises me at certain moments. Not very often does it surprise me but when I think back, I'm surprised at how strongly I believed that scenario. It probably explains my fascination with zombie movies.
Ever since the Iron Curtain fell, I haven't felt that fear of the annihilation that I felt as a kid. Even with the things that have happened in the last seven years or so. It may be callus, but the bombings of modern times are nowhere nearly as scary to me as my young fear of a global annihilation.
My fears, if you could even call them that are now more mundane in nature. The same fears most of us probably share. Those of loneliness, poverty or whatever else there is. But I try not to dwell on it.
Really the world isn't that scary. Sure, there are scary places, places I probably would never set foot in. But overall, it ain't that bad out there.
1 comment:
Hey - you must have been traumatized by the TV movie "The Morning After," or was it called "The Day After?" Anyway, I remember that movie scared my little middle school brain so bad I lost sleep and I even think I became depressed.
For most of my life I've lived by a "Live it as though it was your last day" kind of philosophy, because I figure having fun and not caring much for the long-term future is much more satisfying than pulling my hair out from desperation.
The other stuff that brings us down, like lonliness, lack of resources to do what we want to do, and those people who seem to live to ensure our misery, all that stuff can just take a hike! I know it's impossible to just "ignore" the elements in life which bring us down, but I figure that if we spend so much of our time seeking out fun and adventure from this crazy life, then the other stuff either a) Gets forgotten because you're so busy trying to do fun stuff, or b) somehow works itself out as you strive for greater happiness through a lack of concern for what may come next down the long road.
Of course we still need to look after the short term future, like you want to be sure you don't do anything that'll get you physically maimed or lose your job or something.
I like the metaphor of driving at night with headlights. I think it was DH Lawrence who said you can write a book like driving down the road at night. You can only see as far as the headlights shine before you, but you can make the whole trip that way. I think the same can apply to "writing the book of your life."
A therapist once told me about the concept of manageable bites. Like you don't try o eat an entire large pizza in one bite - you don't even try to eat a quarter of it in one bite! You take out a slice, and then have a bite out of the slice that your mouth can manage. I think it's the same with life - you don't go after the whole big picture at once. You'd get totally overwhelmed with the mass of insanity. So you bring your scope from everything down to a slice, like maybe your favorite hobby or your friends, and focus on bites out of that element, like planning to go out with your friends and drink too much and hit on chicks and take a taxi home with a group of wasted party animals.
I kind of like the idea of fixating on having fun rather than the imminent misery which appears to be awaiting us all. Well I say let it wait! There's fun to be had down here on planet Earth!
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