Isn't it telling that I don't even need to say where I am writing from for you to nod your head in agreement? Shit's on fire, as the saying goes, and it's on fire everywhere. What was supposed to be an annual vacation was in fact an agonising pause in time to consider the truly fucked state we're in.

What's the worst part, I ask? The fact that it's so clear and nobody seems to be doing anything about it. It seems so inevitable.

I often find myself drifting into thoughts that this is what it must be like to some extent to be fleeing a war, dragging some memory of paradise lost with you, and clinging to imaginary better futures for your kids. This is just the beginning, of course. The enemy is still a vague and distant threat beyond the horizon. It doesn't threaten your doorstep yet, there is not enough fear to flee. You know that it is there though, and although you cannot bring yourself to say it out loud, or to mention it without joking to those you care about, you know that it is coming for all of us.

If I once had illusions of being able to steer myself and those on my ship through this life, of being able to turn my sails towards a favourable wind, to row myself ashore, now I can see that we are merely adrift. Whatever grace befalls us now is due to mere chance, not by any desire of ours. We are adrift in a sea on fire, and the only land in sight is also on fire. There seems to be no point to doing anything from here out, it feels just as if we had only to await a fiery, tortuous death. Desperate? No, desperate implies some nervous energy left to expend. No, I am exhausted, drifting toward something terrible, and finding it harder by the day to find a fuck to give.

And now a thought comes to me: what is it like for them, for my kids? They are still on the other side of the hill, the side I have been walking up all these years, and now seem to have summitted, one eye on the past, one eye on the meandering inevitable path down. They cannot see what I can see, as is the case with all those who relish in the ignorance of youth. This is a blessing of course, but only for a time. They are becoming fully human, they are no longer objects of this world, but people in the civilisation that fucked it up. They will soon realise that shit's on fire and they will inevitably want to try to do something about it. Judging from the generation which just precedes them, they will be aware enough to know that there is nothing that they can do themselves to put the fires out. They will have to convince others, those in power, those who make the decisions, to change and I can only see this leading to violence.

Their time has come crashing to a halt before they even had a chance to do anything. We and those before us have destroyed their garden and left them a field of flames. Oh yes, I can see them turning to violence. Who could blame them?