the end days (and really nice bathtubs)

My horoscope says I will die a premature death and I’m starting to believe it. It just seems to make so much sense–to never know the weight of time, to never feel paper-like skin stretched across brittle bones. To know too well all the things that happened and all the things that didn’t. I don’t know what it is about old age that makes it so difficult for me to see myself reach it, only that it’s not because of some suicidal inclination I carry within me. As a matter of fact, it’s not even about dying in the first place. It’s more about simply not existing, in a way that feels natural, not mournful. Like taking a train and getting off at your stop instead of riding until the end of the line. 

Growing old always just felt as if it was something that didn’t apply to me. A matter of taste, almost, or personality: it feels like I should be allowed to pick and choose what age I want to keep living my life as. 19? Too young, too messy. 54? Not quite. Something around 32 feels elegant, logical. Enough years to know who you are, what you do and who you have chosen to surround yourself with. Not too many years, however, to make you question all of that. 

This is such a vague and dispassionate feeling that I’m questioning if it has anything to do with me at all. Could it be that we, as a generation, have a difficult relationship with our future selves? I mean, you know the gist. Our days on this planet are numbered or whatever. We all know it and we divide ourselves based on whether you’d prefer to point the finger at the commercial monopoly, who profits over the exploitation of the safe and livable existence of the collective, versus if you’d blame the collective itself, who often hides behind the belief that no amount of individual action will ever make a real difference. Even if we’re speaking of billions of individuals versus a handful of businessmen. Anyways. 

What I’m interested in, rather than who you’d point the finger at, is how you feel. Are you hopeful for the future? Do you look forward to it? Does it scare you that it’s more uncertain than ever? I mean, the future is uncertain by definition. I’ll tell you what really scares me: that state of ‘not knowing’ and consequently ‘not being able to control’, now goes infinitely beyond our own place in the world. A number of questions I was taught to diligently keep at the back of my mind–do I have a happy marriage? Is my job fulfilling? Does my house have, like, a really nice bathtub?--are now being replaced with infinitely more frightening doubts. This is a shared, collective uncertainty. Almost nobody knows. The people who do know are not being listened to. I don’t feel so scared for my own future anymore as I do for the future of people that I don’t even know. 

I am wondering what life was like in the days of old. I’m wondering what people worried about, the questions they asked themselves. I’ve been struggling with seeing the good of living in a modern society, of devoting your life to innovation. Always pushing for more: a faster connection, a sleeker look, an easier life. I feel primitive: held back, amidst all the chaos. When I think of the past, I think of pure survival. Of needs, desires, thoughts, and feelings reduced to their core and of meat consumed down to the bone. Progress feels like a false idol–it feels like we tried to convince ourselves that we are not animals and failed. Survival now feels sanitized, disguised under layers of bureaucracy. 

When you don’t have something to devote yourself to that isn’t just being alive, you start worrying about the edges. It’s the downside of having a choice: it makes you question your purpose, it makes you believe that you have this great big role to play in society and it’s entirely your fault for not being able to find it. Being lost, in this sense, creates a sense of endless urgency. Your brain, originally wired for not much more than picking berries and surviving wild predators, is now littered with fake adrenaline and fabricated stress. More than surviving, we’re striving to exert ourselves to perfection.

We also didn’t really grow up with the idea that we belong to a real collective. Family? Country? Yes. Social class? Absolutely. It probably matters more than whatever it says on your passport anyway. But, collective? No. What does collective even mean? That we recognize ourselves and each other as human, I’d say. And that we act accordingly. But I’ve been doubting this lately. To be honest, the idea that the livability of our future might have been permanently corrupted by the boundless greed of a very select group of people is starting to feel like a joke. I mean, I’m half expecting someone to just be like, Just kidding guys. We’re not really dying. This was a social experiment. Yes, you can still buy single use plastic forks lolz >.< 

All of this makes me think about the role of control in my own life. First of all, I was born against my celestial will. I was probably in the ether, hovering over my mother and yelling at her to just put down the pregnancy test and let it go. But, I’m here, and I have spent the better part of my life trying to build a nice existence for myself. I thought I’d grow up to be impossibly ambitious, blazing up the corporate ladder. I don’t feel so ambitious anymore; better yet, I feel ambitious to have a simple life defined by nothing but dull content. Linen and wood floors. And a quiet mind. A truly simple life, however, seems like a luxury now. To not worry is a privilege, regardless if it’s because the state of the world hasn’t impacted you yet or if it’s because you really just don’t care. 

In any case, I’ve tried to exert as much control as possible over my life as I categorically refuse the idea that external circumstances or people should affect how I live. It’s a double-edged sword - when I achieve something, it feels like I just bent divine design at my will. But when I’m unhappy, I have no one to blame but myself. And what about the collective? If the threat of global warming is somehow solved or, more realistically, minimized, we will likely pat ourselves on the back. We did it! But if worst-case scenarios really take place, we’ll probably see a lot of people radically turn against the Rich and Powerful. Maybe the French can lend us their guillotines. I mean, this was out of our control. Right? 

We didn’t sign up for this, I get it. People have a right to not spend their entire day worrying about such big questions for which there’s no immediate fix. But turning a somewhat blind eye is starting to feel shameful. And, frankly, difficult: my dear little Instagram algorithm has figured out that the way to make me spend the most time on the app is by showing me all of the different world issues I can’t fix. I wish I was God. I’d make things better for everyone, with the exception of (not all!!1!) men. But there would definitely be very pretty bathtubs for everyone. And a lot less existential dread.