I think that this little piece of writing is drawing to a close. I think the journeys of Homo sapiens are drawing to a close. All human endeavour is drawing to a close. It had stepped beyond the limits of its home on Earth and is now standing on empty air. About half of the species is so cemented to its achievements that it cannot turn back. The other half, who remain on the remains of a pillaged Earth have no voice to carry to those who stand in empty air. Earth’s living systems are unravelling into lifelessness and the end is not far.
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For this writer, he can muddle along by the power of imagination – of the utopias that are certainly possible, but which he knows are extremely unlikely. He can survive by the tragic comedy of it all. But sometimes good music will pluck inner strings, beyond words and have him collapsed in a sobbing heap on the floor.
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Cultures, as he repeats like a mantra, are what people do – not what they have achieved, or possess. So, culturing is always in the timeless present – it is being in the sensual union of ourselves and our terrains. So also, we can only change the course of a culture in that sensual moment. It can never be deferred into a targeted future. Only my present can contribute to the larger future.
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A climate activist’s contribution to a common future is not words delivered from a podium, but her share of the jet aeroplane, which has delivered her to the conference.
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Her understanding of the data she presents to assembled delegates should have made it impossible for her to board the aeroplane. That it hasn’t, indicates nothing more than the power of what she thinks of as her power and perhaps – of a longing to “belong” among her peers. That she reads from a document, which could have been published for all to see without stirring from home, is both tragic and comic – perfect for black comedy and for the most-stark of Greek tragedies. At the time, her present contributed only to a rosy future for jet aeroplanes.
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That’s all I have to say.
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We can choose to step back from those targeted futures and into our lives and their real effects. I don’t think we will, but we could.
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That “we could” is all that keeps this writer holding on to the shimmering beauty of a fragile spider’s thread.
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