Tuesday, September 06, 2005

Denial

I had hoped to pen something perky, funny or clever this AM. But I awoke in a dark mood. I fell asleep last night to the bad news coming from further south. Katrina is still having it's effect.

This century has certainly been packed with excitment. In 5 or so years, a lifetime of catastrophies have been packed. I cannot help but reflect back to many of the biblical doom and gloom fortune tellers, Nostradamus, and the whacko on the corner sporting the sign that said, "The End is Near". An odd combination of disasters, political events, and economic trends have more of us considering the predictions we all used to quietly chuckle at.

The end may indeed be near. But like so many things not worth worrying about, this is one of them. If it is near, any contribution I may make to avoiding it at this point seems too little too late. Besides, if the prophecies are correct, we cannot do anything anyway.

But even if the end is not near, Life as I knew it is going to be different. Life for my daughter will be different. My US culture is apparently going through some major adjustments. The final outcome may or may not be good. But we are changing. Our short sighted ways are coming back to bite us. Our overwhelming dependence on a finite resource without considering the end of that resource may well be our undoing. What we are doing now is akin to the phases of grief. Right now, we are in denial.

No comments: