Can we keep any perspective when the Earth is burning up, as a species we continue to crap where we eat, and the oceans have become plastics receptacles?
Simple answer is we have to. Or most, if not all, humans die. Bad as that is, we take most other life forms with us. If you ask most people in whatever culture, ‘Do you have a sense of fair play?’ they’ll say, ‘Of course.’ It doesn’t take a logic professor to disprove that proposition.
Barbara Tuchman’s wonderful book, A Distant Mirror, chronicles the state of the European world in the 14th century. The writings from that period mirror our own. Plague coupled with superstition, a vengeful god, and failing crops came close to wiping out major population centers.
I know this. With whatever future writing I take on, the fate of the world and our place in it, has to be central to any play or novel I might write. Whether there will be readers to read such works is debatable. But that doesn’t matter. We humans have an innate need to write about ourselves—regardless of the illusions that we use to keep us from falling into utter despair.
Keep going. Keep on.
