rumblecrash

No one really knows how long we have, but we know enough to make deliberate choices about how we live.

I’ve seen a lot of people talk about “living in the present.” That means “enjoy what you are doing now, to get the most out of life” but it also can mean more than that. We have been trained to tell ourselves stories about who we are and what’s important in life, but not all of those stories are true. Or, the current extreme conditions make those stories no longer useful to us.

So “living in the present” can mean letting go of stories that we tell ourselves, and paying careful attention to what is really going on, as best we can understand. What we see will be different for each of us, of course, because we’re all living our own lives! When we understand clearly, we may decide to make different choices: about how we relate to people, about how we spend our time, about what we choose to think about and give our attention to. We can do this no matter how much time we have left.

Even if there were not a huge crisis in the world, it would be healthy to live according to your own understanding of what’s really going on. So I would say “trust yourself,” and “give yourself power.” Let yourself become the person you would most like to be, as much as you can. Then, it doesn’t matter how much time we have, because every day is a perfect day.

I think it’s an interesting question whether adaptation to climate breakdown must include survival. It is commonplace for humans to give up their lives in service to something greater: soldiers in war, martyrs in religion, activists in civil disobedience or revolution. Perhaps there is something greater than human survival that we are now called to serve! What could you call it? “Compassionate living?” “Planetary justice?” “Right relations with the Earth?” One need not imagine fighting to preserve one’s life. One may imagine laying it down in a good way.

What if survival is not the point, either for individuals or for the species? What if all of human history is an object lesson in the consequences of hubris, greed, and cruelty? What if, in order to bring the planetary system into balance, it is necessary that humans suffer, die, and disappear? Would we not, then, welcome the end? Would we not cheer the application of cosmic justice? Would we not enter joyfully into that redemption?