The World Sucks
Speaking of New Year's Resolutions, when looking for the Calvin and Hobbes comic I linked to yesterday, I also found this one:
To quote Calvin,
Here another year has gone by and everything's still the same! There's still polution and war and stupidity and greed! Things haven't changed! I say, what kind of future is this?! I thought things were supposed to improve! I thought the future was supposed to be better!
[As a quick aside, do you think my love of exclamation points comes from Calvin and Hobbes?]
I can definitely relate to Calvin here. It seems like every day, I hear about some new story that makes me question the idea that humans care about each other. In particular, the complete disregard for other people's feelings, opinions, beliefs and rights in relation to gender, sexual orientation, religious affiliation, privacy, political affiliation and life.
I've gone back and forth over the years about how involved I think I should be in making the world a better place for everyone. On the one hand, if I feel like there is wrong in the world, it seems like I should be doing everything in my power to stop it. There are people out there, right now, suffering.
On the other hand, for all intents and purposes, my "world" is limited to those that I know personally; my family and friends. And that is generally where my efforts have ended up. I will do everything in my power to help take care of those in my life.
These recent events have only reaffirmed this conclusion. The world out there sucks. It's dangerous. It's mean. It's greedy. It's so many other awful things. But I can trust my family. I can trust my friends. I know they care about me. I know that they worry about hurting me. If I spend all my efforts trying to improve the world, I could end up neglecting my circle, or worse, getting damaged myself in some way (and hurting them).
I think it is wise to remember the words of Bilbo Baggins:
"It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out of your door," he used to say. "You step into the Road, and if you don't keep your feet, there is no telling where you might be swept off to."
That being said, I find this video incredibly moving:
11 January 2011 07:57am UTC • 260 views • 6 comments
Tagged with life, future, caring, world, calvinandhobbes
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6 comments
Swabie Scabbie
12 January 2011 12:55am UTC
The biggest reason I'm not trying to right all the world's greatest wrongs is that I don't think it's possible. Also I'm lazy. Fortunately, individuals just can't make that much of a difference on their own (which is good, because I think a lot of people's idea of a perfect world is terrifying). But I think groups of people can be extremely powerful, which is part of why I think being close with a large group of people is important (it also makes me happy). But I think close groups of people are really destructive and narrow minded when they consist of all similar people (eg: wealthy, white, educated Americans) and really productive when they're diverse (eg: multi-national, multi-ethnic, multi-generational, with totally different interests).
Erik the Redish-orange
12 January 2011 02:30am UTC
I have heard people claim that every generation pretty much feels like the world is as bad as it has ever been, that things couldn't get much worse, and that everything is going to hell. Yet the world keeps on spinning, good things keep happening, and the sun keeps rising. Maybe I am overly optimistic, but I tend to agree with this view. I mean, there are lots of bad things in the world, but there are lots of good things too. There are lots of good people and organizations out there.
I personally feel the media is largely to blame for the feeling that the sky is falling. The media thrives on reporting negative, awful things. Positive stories, if told at all, are told as afterthoughts. And the ratio of negative to positive has to be 5 to 1 at best.
The interesting thing is that bad news is what sells. So, maybe there is something about being human that makes us fascinated with the idea of the world falling apart, coming to an end, and generally being shitty. Or maybe we're just addicted to bad news.
Whatever it is, I still like to think that things aren't really that much worse than when our grandparents thought the world couldn't get any worse.
The Anonymous Poppy
13 January 2011 06:57am UTC
It's weird; I was just thinking similar thoughts earlier this evening. My conclusions were probably quite different from yours, since they lead me to tweet "I wonder how many suicide notes have been tweeted." And now I just feel like reading Ecclesiastes all night.
Sailing Master Keri
14 January 2011 12:42am UTC
I'm glad you haven't totally given up on the world!
Peon Peetie
14 January 2011 01:29am UTC
that video reminded me a bit of the twilight zone, except with really beautiful time lapse photography
The Anonymous Poppy
14 January 2011 01:44am UTC
Wow, that video is amazing! I just adore Carl Sagan. (I really like the last clip, with stars moving through the sky.)