Back on-Line. Looking Ahead
I haven’t posted on this “Publication” in over nine months. The last few posts were about MY future and the choices I was making to stay alive. But now, I am still alive, and faced with many choices about what it will take for me to stay that way.
Going through cancer treatment was not fun, and I strongly recommend that everyone avoid it if possible. However, they now tell me that, as far as they can tell, I am cancer free, and that one pill a day will diminish the odds of the cancer returning. Yes, the pill gives me muscles cramps, and a few other side-effects that have become part of who I am, but wasn’t before. But I teel it is worth taking the pill.
So, good. I’ve survived. But as a result of the treatments I needed, even though I was originally told they wouldn’t be necessary, I have been damaged in other ways. This is not from the cancer, but from the times that the doctors decided that dripping a liquid form of mustard gas into my veins was the best way to make sure the cancer was gone. Who was going to argue with that? But, that treatment did more than destroy cancer cells, it damaged my lungs.
That is why I feel super-vulnerable to the ravages of today’s threat to my existence, COVID-19. Therefore I have become super-vigilant about keeping myself safe. So that is my first choice when thinking about the future. I am choosing to stay alive.
In order to maximize my chances of survival the only other person who comes into this house is my wife. The only person who touches me is my wife. The only person who comes within ten feet of me is my wife and the person who puts the packages into the trunk of my car, who comes to within seven feet from where I’m standing. I either pre-pay the tip or leave some bills in the trunk. I don’t know if I will feel safe to change those rules unless I know that a vaccine has taken effect. Otherwise, how can I be sure that the person sitting six feet away from me is not contaminating the space around us all, especially if everyone within sight has not been tested very recently. I relate to people now through several technological platforms.
But, beyond my own choices for the future, the choices that we all make during this time of crisis will have a tremendous affect upon the future of the world, especially for the existence and composition of the human species.
One thing I have learned from living this long, talking to thousands of people, and all of my readings and writings, is that the Earth will survive. Mother Earth is a harsh mistress. She is constantly testing the existence of every living thing. That is why 99% of all the species that have lived on Earth over the last billion years are gone. They may have passed many tests, but eventually they failed a big one, and that was the end of their story.
Humans are now the top of many food chains. We are not vulnerable to many predators. The biggest threats to our existence are ourselves and how we treat each other, ourselves and what we are doing to our environment, and the threats to our health from tiny things, such as tics, bacteria, viruses, and other diseases.
Theoretically, we have big, flexible, creative brains, that can solve these problems. If you look through history, you find that humans have often come up with amazing, creative solutions to many of the problems that that have confronted them. But, if you look closely, you often see that in another ten, twenty or a hundred years, the problems return and the solutions are either forgotten or left rusting in the barn or rotting in the field. You can see that in our responses to wars, weather disasters, earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and pandemics.
This crisis gives us an opportunity to examine our choices carefully and to plan, as best we can, to create the future we want. Perhaps we can finally avoid making the same mistakes over again.
I expect to be posting things on this site about what choices I see being made, and what the possible consequences might be. Being old and grumpy, I will make the case for certain choices that I believe should be made, and which ones will be harmful. I hope that the few of you who stumble across these posts will add your opinions. That would make it much more interesting.
I’ll be back here soon.
Right now I’m going to go wash my hands, disinfect the counters, and stare out at the wind and rain. I will take precautions so I won’t get hit by the lightening that I was just told by my phone, is coming my way.
Stay safe, everyone.
DJB
