When my fears grew up

My fear used to be:

Losing those I love, but now?

Death seems a kindness

***

Authors note:

When I was younger my only real fear was loved ones dying.

I think that’s a very optimistic way to fear, to only be afraid of death?

For this fear to make sense, it assumes death to be the greatest loss and the ultimate evil. assuming nothing could be worse than death assumes by extension that a good life to be the universal default of living.

Deeper pains didn’t occur to me back then — I had no concept of misery or despair.

As an adult I feel (and fear) differently.

Im still afraid of losing my loved ones. But more than their deaths, I fear losing them to agony and suffering.

Increasingly, the future feels like a threat— not only to their safety but to their well-being.

Where I once felt hope about humankind’s collective future, all I feel now is a defeated sort of pessimism.

We’re trending down and I can’t help but see things poised to go from bad to worse: climate change will lead to agricultural strain and resource scarcity, staggering wealth inequality will lead to normalized crimes against the poor and the working class, unchecked political corruption that protects multi-count felons and suspected pedophiles will only lead to deeper violations of human rights. The social contract has been reformatted as a social trap. Political violence, like what we’re seeing from Israel in their attacks on Gazans and others, is allowed to continue, and establish a precedence which will allow future evils to become more commonplace.

I have kids of my own.

I’m still afraid of the possibility that some illness, accident, or attack could kill them. But I’m even more afraid that living in a world that’s trending downward could break their will to live— or their ability to enjoy life.

They’re happy right now, blissfully unaware of what the future may hold. But they aren’t more special or worthy than any other child on earth… The only thing that makes my kids different from the victims of people like Epstein is luck. And the only thing that makes my kids different from those being crippled, starved, and orphaned in Gaza— or other regions torn by hate-fueled violence— is geography.

There are snakes coiled, oozing venom, ready to strike: unjust wars, man-made famine, open oppression, and depraved, inhuman violence.

These evils are real.

Until everybody is safe, nobody is.