(2)

My desire for solitude is, perhaps, somewhat excessive.  But it is not, I think, altogether unreasonable.  I suppose I must admit to being something of a misanthrope:  although I would never go so far as to say I hate the human race, my distrust of it is certainly profound.  As individuals I find humans to be frequently honest, intelligent, and kind, but as a species I think we have shown ourselves to be but dubious inheritors of the earth.  We have yet to free ourselves of our passion for self-indulgence, and the results have been devastating.  Our lust for power, our presumption of a wisdom we have not yet attained, our vanity and our pride, are making a wreckage of all that complex and delicately arrayed splendor once everywhere to be found in the natural world.  Look out the window sometime.  Do it now.  Is not the truth of the matter everywhere evident before you?  Given that evidence, what other attitude but one of suspicion and doubt is it possible to take?

I don't know that there's much wisdom to be shown in remarking generally upon the age in which I live.  It would probably be "wise" to follow common practice and acknowledge that it's only the future which can give any true perspective, any real hope of understanding, to the past.  I can't pretend to be objective, and probably shouldn't set myself up to be judge, for our present situation is one of such overwhelming change that it's become impossible to imagine what the future of society – or indeed, of the planet itself – might be.  But I fear the worst.  Having suffered during the course of recent history two World Wars, the Holocaust, social and political revolutions too numerous to count, the threat of nuclear devastation, technological advances that are outpacing common understanding, and pollution of such magnitude that for nature, this is already a time of devastation, it's difficult not to fall prey to the belief that we are entering upon a period of great darkness.  And although it's true that I am but poorly equipped – having no more than an average amount of intelligence and insight – to foretell the future, it seems to me more or less self-evident that the future may well turn out to be so different from what we now know that our descendants will be equally ill-equipped to imagine the past.  While it may be that the human condition is such that our ability to perceive who and what we are, as well as who and what we may become, remains inextricably interwoven with the times in which we live, yet it seems to me impossible to deny that we are less able now than ever before to state with any certainty what hope there is for tomorrow.  "What the hell happened?" may well turn out to be the only question that's left for future generations to ask.

There are many observations I might make about modern society, many personal opinions about it that I might put forth.  Others do so often enough – why shouldn't I?  We live, it seems to me, in an increasingly caustic world, a world in which corruption has become so all pervasive as to seem like an inescapable (and therefore acceptable) condition of our existence, our resignation in the face of it an unavoidable (and therefore blameless) response.  This is a world in which the most flagrant waste of money and resources exists side by side with whole populations of people living in the most wretched destitution.  It's a world in which more animals are now becoming extinct than has occurred since the extinction of the dinosaurs, and pollution grown so extensive that there are many who believe the damage caused by it is already beyond repair.  It's a world in which political ideologies are used as an excuse for massacring the innocent, while religions of love and forgiveness have become a mere front for bigotry and hate.  A world in which people have come to believe that the best way to fight against the atrocities of terrorism is to adopt the same types of attitudes and behaviors they have vowed to defeat.  It's a world where whole countries are governed by nothing more nor less than monetary gain, its individual members being held captive to the dictates of big business.  A world in which people gone berserk with the anger and despair of their own captivity sometimes commit mass murder as a means of retribution, shooting down whomever their tortured minds cause them to perceive as enemies, or simply firing at random into crowds of complete strangers – an act so heinous as to almost defy belief, yet one which occurs with such frequency now as to almost border on the commonplace.

I remember how, a few years ago, I liked to think of myself as someone content to sit by a window in his room, looking out at the world with an air of perfect detachment and occasionally indulging in the urge to jot down a few notes about what he saw going on out there.  Patiently I watched, and patiently I waited.  I liked to imagine that there were many of us sitting by our windows, watching and waiting; many who, whether they recorded what they saw and felt about the world or not, were somehow connected to each other by a kind of secret, silent knowledge.  None of us was really alone.  We all "knew" about each other; we also knew about them – all the rest.  This may sound arrogant, I know; or perhaps merely paranoid; but all I really mean to assert is that while many people may consent, as a general condition of their existence, to the gradual corruption of their desire for an enlightened, humane, and evolved society in which to live, they do so only because they find themselves unable to recognize from what source the corruption springs, or feel themselves to be incapacitated in their ability to fight that corruption even when its source has been correctly identified.  When the systems we invent to assist us in our governance become so deeply entrenched in our minds that it is no longer possible to envision alternative possibilities, we may find that the scope of our individual potential has been correspondingly diminished, and with that diminishment, so diminishes our ability to control the destinies of our own lives.  There is little left to do, at that point, but watch and wait.

But now the image I once held of a people connected by a shared, if unspoken, knowledge has begun to change.  Now I imagine that these same people, having looked long and hard at what human beings have done to the world, are gradually turning away, are turning their backs upon it.  It's all too big, too complex, too immutable to change; and we, by comparison, find ourselves in control of far too little power to affect it.  I too no longer see any other course, any alternative but to join them, these silent brothers, these patient sisters, who watch and wait, then turn away.  Turning my back upon society, hoping to save myself at least, I seek now only to complete the process of becoming impervious within my selective solitude and, while so doing, to catch a glimpse of those other strange beings who are, in essence, leaving this world behind.  For I know that they alone can offer me the solace and companionship I need in order to face this bitterness, this shame, this sorrow.  I know that they alone are the only ones who can offer me hope for the world that lies beyond tomorrow.

I KNOW THERE'S A DEAD ONE TOMORROW