The New Year and the 17th Century
The New Year is here and this is a strange one to face. Normally it would feel more natural to generate some optimism to the start of a new year. But the results of the election have severely dented if not destroyed my sense of optimism, so this will be a considerable challenge.
Having the benefit of a history degree, I know that there are many other eras when things looked super bleak. Studying the 17th century in particular is interesting because it is filled with seemingly cataclysmic events, and yet people not only carried on some of the greatest discoveries made by humanity happened during this period. People actually formed entire organizations and colleges with the hope of bettering their knowledge and advancing human civilization.
Of course part of what feels so bleak about this incoming year is the feeling that this is self inflicted. People voted for this. The coming chaos will be something people chose. And what hope is there when these people, the result of decades of failure to improve our education system, are so adamantly opposed to improving our education system.
The other problem is that this is unknown territory. There are many possibilities. Really the best hope is that some of those are less damaging than others. Maybe we’ll be lucky and the worst outcomes won’t occur. This must have been true for people in other grim eras as well, but it’s easy to say “people had it rough then” when you know the outcome. Also, when I think of the 17th century for instance… I don’t see another Royal Society or Invisible College or some other effort coming together to promote knowledge cropping up in today’s world. Maybe I’m wrong. Hopefully I’m wrong. I hope people who are smarter and younger than I am will try this. I’d love to help, I just have my doubts it will happen.
The question I think should be asked is what to do about it. I’m not sure I have an answer for how to stop a crazed, fascist president and his party from inflicting harm on the country’s citizens and the world. I hope people resist. I’d like to say I’ll help resist, but I’m certainly not thinking that I’m rushing out the door to join an unknown protest movement. Shit. I’m so depressed by this it’s hard enough to get out of bed. But I’m told that making art is a form of protest. It will be difficult, but this I know I can do. I’ve done it before. I can overcome the depression to do it again, or so I keep telling myself.
This brings us full circle back to the New Year and the way I normally begin it planning what I hope to accomplish. I have two novels that are basically ready to go. I hope to get at least one published before the year is out. Both have one or more elements that should be middle fingers aimed at the forces of ignorance… not that those forces read a lot or understand metaphor or even direct statements. I have a nearly completed novel that I’ve been meaning to finish the last act of. I intend to get at least a readable draft of that finished. It’s a good idea to have some quality escapism built into my plans. I think I’ll be doing some second world fantasy writing… I’ve made enough of these for my roleplaying campaigns, I think I can at the very least distract myself by writing some stories in a world that isn’t ours. I also think it’s natural to wonder where things came off the rails in our reality, and wonder what might have been. I have a retrofuturism idea that I want to explore.
And if anyone creating a modern day Invisible College or even just resisters need the help of a grumpy, old writer who gets anxiety if he has to leave the house on his own… I swear, I’ll do whatever I can to help.
