Studying the Apocalypse in history and literature is an integral part of staying sane. We are worlds unto ourselves, which is why the world is always ending. The Quran probably explains it best when it talks about how the killing of one person is the killing of humanity.
In that sense — and considering that physics points out that the difference between past, present, and future is, as Albert Einstein put it, “a persistent illusion” — all of humanity is dead already.
There is not much to worry about, not in light of something like that. It’s not an excuse to be a nihilist of course. Nihilism is just too embarrassingly easy.
Last weekend, I saw my school classmates for our 20th reunion, and annoyed them terribly with all of my stories of wartime logistics and Russia’s frequently embarrassing intelligence efforts in the United States. What struck me is that absolutely nothing had changed in the twenty years since I had seen most of them last. I was still a complete and utter weirdo in the company of well-brought-up individuals. Talk about the meaninglessness of time.
When they kindly expressed sympathy with regard to the passing of my father, I pointed out that, “We all die eventually. At least he died as the result of being too nice and refusing to abandon his family as a deadly virus raged out of control.” There were some nods.
I should really stop going to parties altogether, and I’m pretty sure I’ve made that decision before (it’s all a big cycle, just as apocalypses are a cycle).
In my childhood home, which we drove by while trying to not act too creepy, my father’s legacy is carried on by a very well-organized garage visible from the street when the door is up — my father always prided himself on having a good space for his tools — and a magnolia tree that still stands watch in the front yard. Here and there, ghosts walk the earth, and their routes don’t change much. Maybe that’s the whole point of being a ghost, the refusal to give up on old habits.
In the States, social media hysteria has meanwhile reached a state of overlapping crescendos, as Elon Musk bought Twitter at too high a price, the midterm elections commenced, and people pointing out the ravages of climate change were predictably drowned out by whatever the hell it is that the GOP is doing in its cheerful march toward authoritarianism while other people argue about how many genders can fit on an easily readable pie chart. I’m not trying to be flippant about any of it, especially considering that my native country of Ukraine can easily get screwed by too much U.S. political infighting — when we think about killing humanity, what Russia has attempted to do to Ukraine is the quintessential example — but my instinct has been to put down my phone and to focus on what I can, realistically, achieve.
That anything exists around you at all is largely due to the fact that countless other people were called to their work, and then did it, regardless of who was screaming about what
Asking people to not be hysterical right now is just not realistic.
So I sat down and wrote this instead, and if you’re reading it, I’d like to tell you that the world needs you, dying or not. The state of the world, in fact, is largely irrelevant to how much it needs you.
There have always been hard and confusing times. None of us are special. That anything exists around you at all is largely due to the fact that countless other people were called to their work, and then did it, regardless of who was screaming about what. There is a lot you can learn from that and from them, especially now.
When my father planted his magnolia, I doubt that he imagined us all driving by it one day as people who no longer had a connection to the ground in which its roots took hold, overwhelmed by part grief and part wonder. Or maybe he did. For a talkative man, he sometimes said a lot less than he should have.
I am terrible with plants, so I plant words instead. These are my words to you, the ones I hope will grow and flourish and cast useful shade:
Do what you have to do.
Image: Danielle Comer