Your chore list is long but it's also kinda beautiful from where I am, looking at mine.
Last night I was sitting at my desk watching the changing light on the horizon out my southwest-facing window. It was so very beautiful. I was thinking of this passage I read in Saving Time by Jenny Odell; she’s on the beach, and reflecting on first some rocks, and then the make-up of the sand itself. Here’s the excerpt:
“By the most recent time that the seafloor was uplifted by tectonic activity – in the Pleistocene, an epoch when saber-toothed cats and dire wolves roamed the land above – the pebbles had become embedded in the seafloor's other material. More waves eroded that uplifted land, setting the pebbles free (to become the gravel we are standing on now), while the rest of the stuff was washed back out to sea. Of course, it's not as if this process were done. In front of us, the pebbles are slowly giving way to sand, being ground down by every subsequent wave. Look again at the pebbles. Make no mistake: They are neither signs nor symbols of time. No—they really are two things at once: seafloor from the last ice age, and future sand.”
I was thinking of all that passage of time and, can you imagine, Nora, that there really DID used to be saber-toothed cats and dire wolves and all of that stuff running around here? It’s really mind-blowing.
It makes all of our problems and efforts seem so pitiful. Even the hand-wringing over climate change. Yes, we’ve totally fucked everything up and nobody cares or is willing to do anything about it and it is going to make centuries of life miserable. In the long game though, the Earth doesn’t really have to give a fuck either. The hellscape I live on – Montana – isn’t so different from what you are living in in Iowa. Those fuckers don’t deserve our discomfort. We must fight the good fight, yes, but in the long game those heartless mofos will ultimately be forgotten dust, despite their bluster.
Thank you, Chris. That perspective is comforting. It’s just hard to see all the pain in the meantime. And yes, I’m excited about my chores even though they will take time; I’m looking forward to all of these things!
Your chore list is long but it's also kinda beautiful from where I am, looking at mine.
Last night I was sitting at my desk watching the changing light on the horizon out my southwest-facing window. It was so very beautiful. I was thinking of this passage I read in Saving Time by Jenny Odell; she’s on the beach, and reflecting on first some rocks, and then the make-up of the sand itself. Here’s the excerpt:
“By the most recent time that the seafloor was uplifted by tectonic activity – in the Pleistocene, an epoch when saber-toothed cats and dire wolves roamed the land above – the pebbles had become embedded in the seafloor's other material. More waves eroded that uplifted land, setting the pebbles free (to become the gravel we are standing on now), while the rest of the stuff was washed back out to sea. Of course, it's not as if this process were done. In front of us, the pebbles are slowly giving way to sand, being ground down by every subsequent wave. Look again at the pebbles. Make no mistake: They are neither signs nor symbols of time. No—they really are two things at once: seafloor from the last ice age, and future sand.”
I was thinking of all that passage of time and, can you imagine, Nora, that there really DID used to be saber-toothed cats and dire wolves and all of that stuff running around here? It’s really mind-blowing.
It makes all of our problems and efforts seem so pitiful. Even the hand-wringing over climate change. Yes, we’ve totally fucked everything up and nobody cares or is willing to do anything about it and it is going to make centuries of life miserable. In the long game though, the Earth doesn’t really have to give a fuck either. The hellscape I live on – Montana – isn’t so different from what you are living in in Iowa. Those fuckers don’t deserve our discomfort. We must fight the good fight, yes, but in the long game those heartless mofos will ultimately be forgotten dust, despite their bluster.
Thank you, Chris. That perspective is comforting. It’s just hard to see all the pain in the meantime. And yes, I’m excited about my chores even though they will take time; I’m looking forward to all of these things!