11 June 20XX+1
My Dear Lucilius:
Today I found myself struggling to find the psychic energy to do anything. I did the minimum of chores that needed doing – checking on the garden, checking on the quail, checking on the bees – then I went back inside. I instinctively knew that I should be doing more. I simply lacked the will.
Even I am overcome at times at the extent of the disaster that has befallen us.
Often times I can put it behind me or cover it up with the facade of busy-ness or simply survival (to some extent they are one and the same these days). Yet in the back of my head I hear the clocking ticking down on all that I have here or all that I know is around me. At some point even these things run out.
Barring recovery, of course.
I try not to think about any sense of a recovery at this point. If there was a recovery, what would it actually look like? Much of what we saw of the “economy” had been quietly and practically gutted over the years; the very reason I was no longer working was simply that there was no point in doing so. And to start a recovery, one to have some kind of base. What sort of base do we have now?
And this does not cover things like the Locusts wandering just beyond our vision. Surely this is not the only group that is doing so, and surely they would not welcome a return to the ways things used to be.
My mind runs in the channels until it simply gives up of its own accord.
It is not as if this has never happened before, of course. History clearly explains to us that things fall apart, sometimes very badly. And likely individuals at that time felt similar to how I feel today: Overwhelmed. Lost. At best shaky about what appears to be the task of surviving long enough to reconstruct civilization, at worst thinking merely about survival. The fact that we do not often have the personal thoughts of those that went through such things does not make them any less real.
In my case, fortunately, I was not allowed to stew in my own juices for an excessively long time. By chance – well, let us be honest at this point, not chance at all – Pompeia Paulina came by. She dragged me back outdoors to keep doing the things that needed doing. For added benefit, she made me do them at my place and then made me do them at her place. Idle hands as tools of the devil and all.
But even in my physical exhaustion and focus on making conversation, the same question continues to haunt me as I write this in the gathering darkness, both real and metaphorical: Is there even a way back or out from this, or is this simply the dying embers of a thing that is destined to fail and I am only fooling myself that there is any hope of maintaining anything, not to mention reconstruction?
There are days, Lucilius, that living alone with one’s thoughts can haunt one.
Your Obedient Servant, Seneca
Interesting chapter, TB. Interesting thoughts. One, of course, is spiritual weariness. The other is cultural (or more likely economic) "recovery."
ReplyDeleteWe humans are such creatures of what's familiar. Few of us adapt well to drastic changes of circumstances. Neither are we very good at thinking things through (a subject that you've eloquently touched on before.) In Seneca's world, I suspect most folks would want to return to what is familiar. And most likely, that means trying to rebuild the same system that failed them in the first place.
Leigh, to be completely transparent, I share a lot of Seneca's mental exhaustion at the state of things right now. It feels as if every day as I read events, the wheels continue to slowly come off the bus, and no-one reacts. At some point not only can I get depressed about the future (no, not that kind of depression, just the generic kind), I start asking "is this current future even worth saving?"
DeleteI suspect that for most people - me included - the "norm" is what we want to revert to, even if we know it is laden with difficulties: I like the fact that I coffee and air conditioning, sometimes at the same time. And for many, they have become greater or lesser levels of dependent on "the system", so there is a built-in urge to go back to the way things were. But what if one cannot find - or build - one's way back?
Maybe sometimes we forget to Wait to Worry. The real calamities are the events that come out of the blue. The Gulf Oil Spill Deepwater Horizon of 2010 for example. We knew it could happen and for a while, some thought the Gulf's coastline would have to be completely evacuated for several hundred miles. I don't know the population around that, but it is considerable. Thankfully, this did not happen. At least this time.
ReplyDeleteAnonymous - That is fair, and there are many quotes about "not taking on tomorrow's troubles today". As I write this, Maui has experienced terrifying wildfires with at least 35 dead. Who was planning last week for fires?
DeleteThere is a careful balance between being aware and overly concerned to the point of being unable to do anything - something, I might add, I am not very good at balancing all the time.
Seneca is very lucky to have someone, Pompeia Paulina, involved in his life that appears to be well-grounded. Two words TB, normalcy bias for when the Fall starts. If there is a dying light.... time to rage against it and fight, not give up.
ReplyDeleteSeneca is lucky, Nylon12 (actually really lucky - trust me that when I started writing this Pompeia Paulina did not exist in his mind or mine; her appearance is, well, fortuitous - or this really is something from an alternate timeline being transmitted to me).
DeleteNormalcy bias. I am seeing it more and more. Some of the things that I see in the news and no-one reacts...let us say I am surprised.
I used to wonder how people could mill about as tragedies were unfolding without the least bit of concern. I am coming to understand how that is possible.
Often duty to others gets me going when I feel exhausted or paralyzed.
ReplyDelete“Do not confuse "duty" with what other people expect of you; they are utterly different. Duty is a debt you owe to yourself to fulfill obligations you have assumed voluntarily. Paying that debt can entail anything from years of patient work to instant willingness to die. Difficult it may be, but the reward is self-respect.
But there is no reward at all for doing what other people expect of you, and to do so is not merely difficult, but impossible. It is easier to deal with a footpad than it is with the leech who wants "just a few minutes of your time, please—this won't take long." Time is your total capital, and the minutes of your life are painfully few. If you allow yourself to fall into the vice of agreeing to such requests, they quickly snowball to the point where these parasites will use up 100 percent of your time—and squawk for more!
So learn to say No—and to be rude about it when necessary. Otherwise you will not have time to carry out your duty, or to do your own work, and certainly no time for love and happiness. The termites will nibble away your life and leave none of it for you.
(This rule does not mean that you must not do a favor for a friend, or even a stranger. But let the choice be yours. Don't do it because it is "expected" of you.)”
― Robert A. Heinlein, Time Enough for Love
Dear friends, those earthy angels that lift you up and kick you in the pants to get you rolling again.
Michael, more than once I have had the same experience, where what I feel I owe to others in performance or output forces me forward.
DeleteThank you for the quote from Heinlein. I have never seen it before, but love it and will ponder it.
Although our world has not decayed to the level described in your story, I find myself amazed by the number of people who are seemingly oblivious about the changes. Their biggest worry is what color polish they want for their next pedicure. SMH
ReplyDeletesbrgirl, I remain amazed myself. Actually, that amazement is part of what prompted this letter. The disconnect between what I see reported and happening and the fact that many people just continue on as if nothing is happening is....concerning. If not unbelievable.
DeleteTHIS: "Duty is a debt...the reward is self-respect." I have found this to be true. Thank you Michael.
ReplyDeleteI vaguely remember a quick, pithy statement that goes like....
Duty is the most sublime word in our language. Do your duty in all things. You cannot do more. You should never wish to do less.
Robt E Lee
As a throwback, honor and duty are words that still top my list of motivations. I remember having to rethink my duty after the divorce. I still hate that word, and the changes it forces. But it cleared the decks of fouled lines and allowed me to assess my life much more clearly. And for that, I am most thankful.
The quote from Heinlein is a gem.
DeleteI, like you, believe that duty and honor still matter. But to your second point it cannot be a static thing in the sense that as circumstances change, we have to reassess where those lie. I can, for example, be loyal to the concept of a country while deploring much of what that country has come to stand for.