A letter to a friend who condemned me as a hopeless doomer

by Lady Die

My dear friend,

I want you to know that I’m sad, but not feeling hopeless about our impending extinction. As I said previously, recognizing the signs of imminent death, whether it’s terminal cancer or terminal climate change, is a freeing perspective. I’ve chosen to be awake and aware, and am now free to see the truth before my eyes. I’m also now free from the rat race, free from working for the man, and also free from paying the man. Imagine, my friend, if everyone realized they were being murdered and that their federal taxes were going towards their murder by destroying the planet? They might just stop participating in their own murder and we might actually have a chance at saving the planet and maybe even ourselves!

But it takes courage to admit that death is imminent. It takes courage to realize there will be no one to remember us, or Beethoven, or Charlotte Perkins Gilman, or Debussy, or Van Gogh, or Isadora Duncan, or Billie Holiday, or Vonnegut, or anybody else. There will be no legacies any more, no memories, no legends, no dirges to mourn us. The finality of it will be eternal. But it will not be the first time a species went extinct. Every day 200 species go extinct. Our number is coming up soon. It takes courage to admit that, and blind faith to ignore it and go on with business as usual.

The only thing I feel hopeless about, dear friend, is that I realize people will never realize in time they are being murdered. And you too, my sweet friend, are inadvertently and unconsciously contributing to that through your, albeit well meaning, attempt to create a “safe” place for people to share their feelings, and talk about hope, as if hope will somehow miraculously heal the planet or stop the science in its tracks.

I do reserve that there is a tiny 1% of hope that something miraculous could happen, scientifically of course, but I’ve always been a pessimistic optimist; I hope for the best, prepare for the worst. The worst thing that happens with this tack is you’re pleasantly surprised when the storm passes you by, and you have plenty of extra water and batteries on hand. But if I were to simply hope for the best and reject the possible worst for fear of being too negative and doomery, I would feel pretty silly when the lights went out and I had no water.

With all my love
Your friend forever, at least for now