The future and the past, told to us in stories since we were children, have merged here and now, in the present. The past: tales of plagues and great suffering, great depressions. The future: artificial intelligence taking away jobs, the wealthy only further consolidating their wealth, while everyone else aggressively treads water and slowly–or quickly–sinks.
A “great depression” hit me yesterday–and not an economic one. One far greater than the typical extisentialist dread. Because meaninglessness doesn’t hold a candle to the curse of humanity: our survivalist and tribe mentality, rooted in our biology, traps us in a constant state of moving backwards when we should be moving forward. Often it’s like we’re on a train, looking out the window, when another passes quickly the other way, and it seems like we’re moving forwards, but actually we’re still drifting to a stop, or at standstill.
Living with a mind that likes to solve problems by putting together different variations of multiple ideas or experiences, the depression comes when I acknowledge that solving for humanity’s achilles heel is much like trying to divide zero by zero. Don’t get me wrong–there are many beautiful, caring individuals who are today risking their lives to help others. There are beautiful parts to humanity as well. But as far as the general sense of progress towards a greater existence, it simply feels as if we’re constantly on that train, moving backwards without noticing.
It may not behoove me in my mental state to watch near-term speculative science fiction, but my husband’s childlike enthusiasm for a Fx series called Devs (and his semi-joking threat to part ways with me if I don’t watch it) led me to watching episode one, and by the end, I was hooked. Its writing is clumsy at times–poignant points are made a bit too perfunctory–but the overall concept is well worth exploring. Inspired by the double slit experiment, the show explores the dark side of quantum mechanics, in giving humans the power to recreate the past and see into the future. It primarily asks us to question the absoluteness of free will, and it seems the physics of it are close enough to possibly possible that it lets ones imagination run free–and/or not free at all (as all our actions and thoughts are on a “tram line,” as the lead character so brilliantly played by Nick Offerman (yes, that Nick Offerman) tells us.) And the show itself is smartly set sometime between now and the next few years, with a might-as-well-be present day San Francisco as its backdrop. It could certainly be present time, with the quantum mechanics work occurring in a lab somewhere on some tech campus, without anyone knowing what was being discovered that could overnight throw our society and way of existing on its head.
Much like Coronavirus has.
There will always be unavoidable threats that face us. A giant meteor could veer a little too close to our solar system and continue its way into our atmosphere and land at such force that civilization is virtually wiped out. An alien species could attack us. The sun could (will) eventually die, as every star does. We derive comfort from progress, our great human “innovation,” yet if there is anything this crisis has–should tech us–it is that we are practically defenseless against these greater threats. The greater the threat, the more incogitable the threat. Instead of moving forward, we’re buried, suffocated, by fake news and conspiracy theorists who vehemently hate science and seek to destroy true progress for the sake of their own comfort thinking they know everything because they read an article somewhere that told them so.
I have little faith in society and thus not the most faith in democracy. I’m not sure the ideal way of managing a massive collective of people, but democracy (and especially whatever version of it we have in America that isn’t actually democracy at all), is fundamentally flawed, as it trusts that the people in a society actually know what’s best for them. It also, at least in the case of American democracy, enables the wealthy to manipulate and gain influence quickly.
Yesterday, Bernie dropped out. I’m not sure his way would, long-term, solve everything. But certainly a system which focuses on making sure every one of its citizens has access to healthcare and a high education is a start. People don’t want to believe that, though, because they’re afraid of being forced to do anything, even if it is in their best interest.
In the conversations and debates I have with friends who are centrists, I find a battle against the belief that progress is good. I sit here, locked in my 800 square foot apartment, wondering why we blindly trust that progress is a good thing. It can be. Certainly vaccines have saved many from horrible illness and death. Our electric cars will reduce emissions and at least minimally slow climate change. But much “progress” is actually regress. Our advancements… do not always advance us.
Even for the positive progress and innovation in the world, why must this type of progress only come from the desire to be wealthy and/or powerful?
I like nice things. I do. I enjoy gourmet meals and wearing overpriced jeans that fit just right and traveling the world in relative comfort. I also like the security that comes with money. No, not money–but wealth. Not “super wealth,” but enough wealth to not have to worry. Wealth that grows enough that you don’t have to think about it wealth. I’m certainly privileged to even imagine a world where that is possible, and lucky to have fallen into a career that, unlike all the things I thought I’d be doing when I was in college, actually pays a livable wage and then some. But, then I wonder, is this world where striving for security–striving for not having to worry about being unable to pay healthcare bills and put a roof over my family’s heads–is a world that shows us any progress at all.
Or are we all really just shifting slowly backwards on that train, lost in the great illusion of progress as “pro?”
life with interest 
