Happy Face 17

It's always been a struggle. The problem? Two things come to mind here: we now have more options than ever, making us a generation of spoiled rich kids, and the spectre of catastrophic climate change from global warming. One other item comes to mind here: growing income inequality, though in many ways that has always been a problem. Many say it's only going to get worse. I agree. Then why aren't we more worried? I would say that we are, but we're all being very neurotic about it. It always works this way. Instead of facing it, we distract ourselves with a lot of nonsense, until it's too late to simply garbage bag everything and then fuss and fret about matters of little consequence. i think there is an ontological reason for smartphone addiction, besides that it is an addictive technology: it provides everyone with a convenient excuse to walk around outside with their heads planted firmly up their asses. Looking at Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or whatever every minute and a half while walking in dogshit is not necessarily my idea of a pleasant escape from reality, but people will scurry off into whatever crevice, cave, or underneath whichever rock will provide them refuge from the scary reality that surrounds us. It is very salutary that the appeal of the populist demagogues getting elected into power in the US, Venezuela, Brazil, the Philippines, or wherever, are all promising the people that vote for them that they are going to help them feel safe and protected. The loathesome premier of Ontario, kind of a Donald Dump light, though he must weigh at least eighty pounds more than the Dump, has promised his mostly white male support base cheap beer and other booze. Vote for me and I will soothe the owie. Do our escapes make us happier? Even the rocks we hide under can start to feel a wee bit claustrophobic. But we're not really less miserable, just drugged and stupefied. That is the difference between escapism and real joy. I can get as miserable as I want about how everything is going to hell in this world and this does nothing to diminish my joy in life. I continue to give thanks for the beauty of nature, despite the record number of species extinctions, I continue to give thanks for other people, despite some of the powerful and wealthy idiots who hold our future in the balance, I continue to give thanks for this incredible, miraculous gift of life, despite that it all seems to hang by a thread and it could be snuffed out in the twinkling of an eye, or in the very near future. My joy is not dependent upon the negative circumstances of life, neither is my joy contingent on everything going well for me, which is to say, exactly the way I want it to go. This isn't to say that I don't get miserable when I don't have my own way. Being a human being, of course I do! But with each unexpected and unplanned-for change in life, comes also a new opportunity, new direction, a new door opening. Even this threat of possible extinction from climate change could turn into a blessing in disguise, if we are willing to look for and accept the gift, and this is not to downgrade the magnitude of threat that is hanging over us, but to find ways of working with it to find and secure for us and for other species a better and more sustainable future. I do not know how any of this is going to happen. I wish it wouldn't have to happen. We are dealing here with unknowns and variables such as have never confronted us before, and the least we can do is to get our heads out of our heinies and start to actively and assertively address the challenges that are awaiting us.