Timing is Everything

When I get down about the state of the world, thinking it may be beyond repair, at least so far as human survival is concerned, I sometimes feel a little guilty for having had kids. They are still young. I do what I can for them. But what if I have cursed them by bringing them in just in time to suffer through the collapse of humanity? What a shitty thing to do was that?

We may well in a drawn out series of events – war, pestilence, plague, drought, starvation – with a final silent whimper. Perhaps micro-plastics will make us all infertile. Perhaps solar panels will be found to give off a toxic waste that causes us to slowly whither away. The possibilities are endless. I could write a daily column of doomsday scenarios that would keep me busy until doomsday actually comes.

But my kids…. sheesh. Imagine I have left them at the precipice. They are middle-aged, standing on a hill looking at a raging wave intense heat and fire rolling across the landscape toward them – incinerating the entire horizon in its path. Imagine what they will be thinking…

“Five million years of human history, and I had to be born now. Thanks for nuthin!