I HAVE READ THAT the period of upheaval that journalists have begun to refer to as “the Apocalypse” or more commonly, more bitterly, “the Pox” lasted from 2015 through 2030—a decade and a half of chaos. This is untrue. The Pox has been a much longer torment. It began well before 2015, perhaps even before the turn of the millennium. It has not ended.
I have also read that the Pox was caused by accidentally coinciding climatic, economic, and sociological crises. It would be more honest to say that the Pox was caused by our own refusal to deal with obvious problems in those areas. We caused the problems: then we sat and watched as they grew into crises. I have heard people deny this, but I was born in 1970. I have seen enough to know that it is true. I have watched education become more a privilege of the rich than the basic necessity that it must be if civilized society is to survive. I have watched as convenience, profit, and inertia excused greater and more dangerous environmental degradation. I have watched poverty, hunger, and disease become inevitable for more and more people.
Octavia Butler
Parable of the Talents 1998
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Octavia Butler is a well known name to me, but not just as the award winning science fiction author but because she is from where I’m from. Ms. Butler attended the same high school I attended, so her name was revered in the hallways. There is also a large mural of her along with Jackie Robinson, another Pasadena native.
I am a true fan of science fiction movies and tv shows, but for some reason I was never a big reader of science fiction. I leaned towards murder mysteries and horror, maybe a steamy Jackie Collin’s book. My sister had books by Ms Butler, but you could usually find me with a Stephen King novel, or possibly one by Erica Jong.
Now that we are fully entrenched in this chaotic and cruel world of the second tRump administration, Ms Butler’s book Parable of the Sower was recommended to me. Like Margaret Atwood’s prophetic novel The Handmaids Tale, Parable of the Sower reached deep into my soul, chilling me to my core. How did Octavia Butler, a Black woman from Pasadena, CA write these words that seemed to describe the current dystopian state of our country? And followed it with Parable of the Talents, which again is a chillingly close rendering of the current state of the Not-United States of America. I had to put the book down at one point as I read the words “Make America Great Again” being used as the slogan for the extreme right Christian America presidential candidate.
But this essay is not a book review, although I highly recommend reading both of Octavia Butler’s books I mention here, not because she was a prophetic writer. It is because she was an excellent writer.
I have been trying so hard to come to a reckoning about the madness that has consumed my country. At 62, I have been on this planet long enough to have seen so much change happen, both good and bad. The arc of technological advancement has been very rapid, and continues to race forward without a lot of guardrails. The tech bros have fully consolidated their power, openly buying politicians and elections.
All those checks and balances I learned about in school have been trampled into the dust of the demolished East Wing of the White House. The Constitution has become no more than toilet paper to our elected representatives from both parties. The speed at which this country has crumpled into an authoritarian system has left me with whiplash. Masked thugs backed by the National Guard literally grabbing people off of a public street should be a scene from an action movie, not what has become an everyday occurrence in so many Democratic Party lead cities and states.
I have been slowly writing this essay for about a month, each idea and word and sentence slowly emerging from my traumatized mind. (If you wonder why I am traumatized you can read this essay about the Eaton Fire.) The fire is just one part of the equation, the addition of living in an unrecognizable country is also part. The subtraction of compassion and empathy, equals a country divided and a traumatized brain.
I often wonder if I should continue to speak my truth. My audience is small, so what harm can it do? But my truth is all I have, my words are myself. The fact that I struggled with being able to create this essay showed me that I am conflicted, that I am wary.
This is not how I want to live my life.
When the world you inhabit is filled with so many lies and alternate facts how do you keep hold of the truth, of your truth?
You have to trust your instinct, your gut, your inner dialogue which may be screaming at the top of its lungs. (Wait, does inner dialogue even have lungs?) My inner dialogue is telling me it is time to go. Time to find a place where peace and the environment and kindness are still valued.
Does this place even exist?
Damned if I know, but for my own sanity and my child’s future I’m determined to find out.
Amazing read 👏🏼