Post 72

I had an interesting conversation tonight, as I do most Saturday nights. I run a D&D game with a small group of RPG-minded folk. We’re currently running Tomb of Annihilation, though that doesn’t have anything to do with this post.

I wanted to write something after this conversation, something that I’ve been turning over in my head for a while, but sort of accidently blurted out in the middle of yet another discussion on vaccines/politics/how terrible Millennials are/etc.

We all know how these conversations go. Someone mentions something innocuous, i.e.. a colleague’s family contracted COVID, someone attended a rally, someone read an article. Sure. Whatever. And then, someone usually wants to describe how we don’t know enough about the vaccine to be able to properly say if it protects people or not. Or, they describe how the vast majority of media is just feeding us propaganda (making no distinction between social media and actual journalists, wild conspiracy theories and actual news, you know the drill). Then they usually throw in a couple comments about how they’ve done the research and they are historians, scientists, chosen prophets of god, whatever, in order to demonstrate how smart and trustworthy they are and how we should listen to them. Trust them.

Great. I no longer want to participate in any of these conversations. I no longer want to persuade people to get the vaccine. To believe that racism exists. To try to alter the crushing failed capitalism that is grinding millions into poverty and raising a tiny oligarch to rule the earth. And no, I’m not talking about the Jews. I just no longer want to have an opinion.

And yes, I can hear you valiant activists screaming about how if no one stands up to the tyrants, there will be no one to save me for when they come for me. Understood.

I don’t want to participate in this anymore.

I mean, I will, because evidently everyone needs to have an opinion and protest that opinion at the drop of a hat. What is the internet but a bunch of screaming opinions in the great void, all trying to get a little more attention than the rest. And yes, I fully recognize the irony of having an opinion on opinions. However, here’s a thought that occurred to me: we genuinely don’t know about a shit-ton of information directly relevant to the world issues surrounding us, so why should our opinion matter? Why did being a loud, ignorant, individual outweigh Dr. Fauci, the CDC, the whole United States Government? I don’t know the first thing about pandemic operations to protect public health, so why should I get to have an opinion on it?

More than that, why would I try to convince someone else of my opinion? I’m not a doctor/lawyer/human rights activist and, even more relevant, literally NOTHING matters about my opinion. I do not control any decisions. I get no say in any of these major policies. I’m not even allowed to vote on most of them. All my opinion does is make me sad/angry/depressed when people don’t share it.

So, why have one?

Of course, it’s fine to educate myself on issues. Properly sifting through information or data streams to develop an accurate view of reality is a key component of being human. But how do I know that I am right or that the culture is willing to even accept something that is universal truth? We have been racist, sexist, hateful tribes for thousands of years. Me ranting about it for twenty minutes to a captive audience will not change the deeply engrained cultural cruelties, no matter how much I believe it will or think that it will slowly change things.

You can’t really convince people of something they don’t want to believe. You can only convince them of something if they already believe it. We are a dying species, in my opinion. By the time we figure out how to relate to each other and our planet, we will be drowning in a sea of our own narcissism and incompetence and the Earth will be breathing easy for the first time in 300,000 years. And we’ll kill ourselves with our poor opinions and righteous anger, as we should. We are intolerant, blind, grasping creatures overwhelmed with too much mental horsepower in a millennial-old operating platform. Sorry for mixing metaphors there.

So, I’d like to keep my opinions to myself. I will still vote, carry out my civic responsibilities, care for my employees with compassion and wisdom, but I think I’m done trying to argue for anything or convince anyone of their own imminent unsustainability, whether that’s not getting vaccinated, thinking Trump won the election, or denying climate change and its impacts. I truly think that we are already dead, we are just deluding ourselves that we can still save any part of this species. And when you’re already dead, you become much less attached to your opinion, good or bad.

And isn’t that the real problem? That everyone is so attached to their opinions and have tied them so deeply into their concepts of self and group acceptance that to NOT have an opinion or NOT participate in the formation of a culture around set opinions is so antithetical to our very make-up, we’d literally rather die? And for what? We are already dead. We just haven’t realized it yet.

I think this might be the fall of civilization. The point where the environmental conditions and social conditions were just right to push us over the long hill that ends in the Valley of Death, and lo, I shall fear no evil, for you my Lord God are with me.

They said that to us a lot in the Army. That passage was very popular. Everyone wanted to believe that he/she/it was special. That God would be there to protect us.

Except, he’s not, is he? There’s nothing but the dust and emptiness. How people can still believe otherwise is a mystery, but it’s theirs. All theirs. I won’t touch it. So, no more arguments or desperate pleas to think about the safety and sustainability of the community, about how important individuals working TOGETHER for the benefit of all really is and what wisdom looks like in the modern age. No more of that. The truth and survivability rarely go hand-in-hand and this is no exception.

So. I do not think I am so important, smart, valuable as to be able to convince people to do what they don’t want to do. Or to think through something they have already convinced themselves of. Or to even participate in the debate surrounding our own survival. All I can do is listen and watch us burn the place down. Still.

But, what do I know? This is just an opinion, after all.