What Lies Beyond Hope

It's been awhile. Things have been – well, it's no accident that I haven't chimed in here since the election. To be honest, I didn't know what to say. What do you say when a man dedicates his life to destroying the lives of vulnerable people in order to win an election, and then a majority of people vote for him? You can try to blame all kinds of things, like social media or the manosphere or inflation, but honestly, you have to start to consider the idea that Nick Cave was right. And the worst people? Well, to put it mildly, they tend to look like me: Gen X and boomer white men.

And now the fires. Good lord these fires. So many people I know and love have lost their homes, have lost their childhood homes, have lost businesses and livelihoods and lifetimes of mementos. If you are one of those people, feel free to reach out to me. We're happy to help however we can.

The air is so thick. My eyes start watering whenever I walk away from my HEPA filter. Our poor cats. I have a low grade headache all the time. My sinuses feel like they've been invaded. This is not a good way to live. And we're the lucky ones.

Anyway, it just feels like this giant unstoppable void is coming for us all, and there is nothing we can do. I know, I know, this is called catastrophic thinking. But what do you call catastrophic thinking when everything is catastrophic? I might be a depressive, but that doesn't make me wrong.

Sorry, sorry, I'll stop being such a bummer for a sec, until I start again below that. To make up for being a bummer, here is a picture of my cat Chewie and the heart on his nose.

Anyway, all of this catastrophe has got me thinking about why I became a, well, whatever it is I am now, writer/editor/teacher/professor. When I first started writing again, back in 2006 or 7, I was getting a PhD in political science, fresh off a job working for a Congresswoman and the Democratic Party. I decided to leave all that to get an MFA in writing because I'd grown increasingly convinced that working within politics would never actually help me do good for the world. At the time, I had the sense that the only way to actually help this world not fall off a cliff was to run as far away from power as I could. When I was part of power, when I was part of politics, I felt it destroying something within me that felt, for lack of a better word, sacred. I did some good things in politics. I helped some people, including vets with traumatic brain injury. I'm glad I did it. But I also became insufferable. I had a fucking Blackberry. I handed out my Congressional ID to cops when I got pulled over. I constantly made excuses for the inexcusable, saying that we had to be "realistic." A big part of me hated myself every moment I did that.

So I went to become a writer and editor and teacher and all that, based on this sense I felt within me that creative writing and the humanities was a better fit, and that I could do more good there without becoming a monster. And I think I was right about this – just look at how the powers that be, corporate Democrat and Republican alike, are coming for the humanities and the arts now, and you can see what they are afraid of . Still, I slowly had to come to the realization that my writing was not going to save the world, just as my activism was not going to save the world, because, aside from my lack of being a genius, no one person can save the world. The idea that one person can save the world is some Marvel bullshit, some heroic masculinity bullshit. The very idea of "saving the world" is some Marvel, heroic masculine bullshit. And I know that. But I've also been conditioned my whole life to believe that this is what men do – Luke Skywalker, Harry Potter, Superman, Batman, James Bond, Iron Man, whatever. So I can know that saving the world isn't real – shit, I've known this for decades. But it's still painful to let go of. And it's especially painful when the world is falling apart so spectacularly, because I feel, at least a little part of me, like I have failed. And in some ways, maybe I have.

But just because saving the world is some Marvel bullshit doesn't mean that the world isn't in a catastrophic state. And it is scary. And this is where I find myself. What do you do when you realize that our species, collectively, looks like this? What do you do when it's time to give up on the future you had dreamed of, and you realize you have to live in the future that is coming, and that there is no way to know what that future will look like? How do you survive? How do you help as many people as you can? How do you help yourself without losing your mind? How do you age gracefully? How do you ask for help when you need it?

I don't have answers, but this is where I'm at. And I think, talking to a lot of folks lately, it's where more than a few of us are at.

I'll end with something really cool, something that gives me at least a little bit of whatever I'm looking for beyond hope. When I was in Chicago at the Ragdale residency a few months back, I met this really cool visual artist from Caracas named Robinson Moreno. I got the chance to publish some of his work at Air/Light, and holy shit this man is talented – he did a few pieces for us in honor of his father, who was a woodworker, much like him.

Love,

Seth

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