September: I Will Make The Future Better Whether It Likes It Or Not
Here’s a song. It’s a good song. It’s a masterpiece of lyrics and storytelling and mood. Take a listen; I’ll be here when you get back.
Stick around here long enough and you will be subject to The Boss.
It’s my birthday this month, and to celebrate, I’m picking a new hill to die on.
Doomerism isn’t helping us. That’s the hill.
I’m attempting a lot with this newsletter. I want to address the current streak of nihilism running through the culture, I want to point out that we’ve been here before, as a species, I want to talk about what I’m doing about it, and I want to tell you all about some projects I’ve got going on.
So, back to doomerism. It’s not new. This isn’t the first time a broad cultural undercurrent of apocalyptic depression has gripped a population. If you lived in England in the 1600s, for example, things were pretty bleak. First of all, there was a biblical prophecy proclaiming the end of the world in 1685. A red comet appeared in the sky for a few months, but since telescopes and calculus were still being invented, everyone decided it was an omen of the end times. Beyond that, the general sentiment of the time was that everything was getting steadily worse. Human artistry and inventiveness had already peaked, and now all that remained was to watch the inevitable destruction of the species. And there was a pesky little plague cutting people down in the streets.
Meanwhile, Science Was Happening. King George II founded the Royal Society, dedicated to getting the great minds of England together to get to the bottom of reality, once and for all. Lens technology had just taken a giant leap forward and all of a sudden we really could put the world under a microscope to see what was really going on. (clear water was not so clear after all). And where you have microscopes, you have telescopes. Suddenly those dots in the sky resolved themselves into stars and planets and an obsessive, multi-decade data logging project recorded the positions of everything from Mercury to Saturn. Galileo pointed out that actually, maybe the earth wasn’t the center of everything, a proclamation that managed to offend most of the scientists and most of the church all at once, to his detriment. Kepler and Newton, meanwhile, were writing whole papers about how if you started a ball rolling, it would never stop and never swerve unless somebody messed with it. This was awkward because it was a) true, mathematically speaking, and b) easily “disproved” by anyone with a ball and a stretch of grass, friction being a concept reserved for the educated elite.
In short, the advances in science during this time period directly contradicted everyone’s lived experience. I can’t see anything in the water, what do you mean it’s full of little bugs? Obviously, one of us is wrong, and it’s demonstrably not me. Take your silly little stack of “lenses” you call a “microscope” elsewhere.
For the past few months, I’ve been dealing with a herniated disc in my back. This means pain. I’ve been told by people who know more than me (doctors) that in order to heal, I have to stop doing things that hurt. Such as, for example, sitting. Or walking. Or standing. This is not because these things cause damage, you understand, but because my sciatic nerve is so fed up that it’s firing pain signals if I look at it wrong.
So I spend a lot of time in bed. My options are 1) reading, 2) sleeping, and 3) doomscrolling. And frankly, over the course of the last few months of battling this issue, I’ve done more than enough of all three to last me into the next decade. So I spend a good chunk of my day lying in bed just waiting for time to pass and trying not to get too angry about how I missed a whole summer because of this nonsense.
Cheery, right? Just the kind of uplifting spiritual balm I know you’re all here for.
I’m doing all of this because I believe in something I can’t see. I can’t measure it. I can’t feel it. But I believe the medical professionals when they tell me that I am healing. That my sciatic nerve sheath is repairing itself one millimeter at a time (I estimate my sciatic nerve is over 800mm in length). And that with the right amount of care and patience I’ll be able to resume living life to its most physical and fullest expression.
I was talking about the 1600s earlier. It bears a lot of resemblance to where we are now. A lot of us think everything is getting inexorably and irreparably worse, and our little digital echo chambers reinforce this at every turn. Meanwhile, amazing things are happening in science and medicine that will fundamentally change the world for the better on a seismic scale. Clean energy tech is making strides in seven-league boots. We know more about ecological conservation than we ever have. We’re surrounded by depressing headlines, but the trends are starting to turn around and get positive. We just haven’t seen a lot of this progress trickle down to our daily lives yet, so it feels like nothing’s being done. We got ourselves into this mess and we are inventing ways to get ourselves out of it. I believe that. I have to believe it.
Because here’s the thing. I believe in results. I don’t care about being right, I care about being effective. Which means looking at all the likely outcomes and picking the one I like most, and then working to make it happen.
I have to believe in a better future because morally, I think it’s only right to try to leave the world better than I found it, and subscribing to doomerism doesn’t get me there. The world may be ending, but throwing up my hands and giving in to that prophecy is morally irresponsible. Any worldview that gives me an acceptable excuse for checking out and just letting whatever happens happen doesn’t sit right with me.
It also means thinking small. I can’t wave a wand and wake up tomorrow fully cured, but I can do my physical therapy today, and I can avoid standing for more than 10 minutes at a stretch. It means I’m writing this newsletter longhand, outside in my backyard with coffee and a bathrobe and fuzzy slippers, because there’s a future where I’m cozy and have a blog draft written, and I’m working to make it happen. It also means I’m taking a painkiller or two, because needless suffering isn’t virtuous or admirable. It’s just dumb. It doesn’t help me, and it doesn’t help anyone else.
I’m not a sunshine-and-rainbows optimist. I’m a gritted-teeth, fuck-you-for-making-me-deal-with-this-and-by-god-i-will-make-sure-i-never-have-to-do-it-again optimist. This is spiteful, petty idealism for people who need adversaries to get themselves out of bed in the morning. There’s nothing like the knowledge that someone, somewhere, wants me to have a bad day for motivating me to defiantly have a good one.
Here’s a song. It’s the same song I linked to up top, with all the same lyrics, performed by the same people. But now, with a few small performance tweaks, it’s about the triumph of the human spirit over everything life can throw at it.
It really gets going at about 1:45
I said I was all about results. Descending into the miasma of nihilism that seems to be going around these days doesn’t get results. So I’m going to go to work today, rest, do my physical therapy, and strictly avoid all the fun things in my life that would irritate my back, because I have a reason to believe tomorrow will be better, particularly if I do those things. I may not see the results tomorrow. I may even experience some temporary setbacks. As I write this, I’m gritting my teeth through a nerve flare brought on by ::checks notes:: sitting in my desk chair (it was too soft, apparently?) But tomorrow will be better, and the next day better than that, and so on, because I’m doing my bit today to make it happen. And because I refuse to let things be any other way.
Today I’m getting out of bed because there are people in funks, people who are burnt out on trying, people who are overwhelmed with negative headlines, people who have been stuck in bed for a few months*, people who are looking around at all the Big Bads and feeling like their Small Goods are insignificant and meaningless. I’m getting out of bed to remind those people** that those small acts towards a better future tend to shape our immediate realities a lot more than the Big Bad headlines.
Small Acts Of Angry Optimism:
Give a random friend some chocolate/flowers/a link to a good podcast. Because someone around here is going to feel better if you have anything to say about it.
Draw a stick figure of a convenient nemesis. Light your favorite candle and burn your effigy. There’s a better future around here somewhere and that guy isn’t in it.
Pick a pervasive pioneer species in your area. Decide it’s a symbol of gritty survival and feel uplifted every time you see it. Bonus points if you plant some***. For me this is morning glory, and I styled my wedding ring after it. Every time I’m out for a walk, I see little white flowers that remind me of someone good in my life. For you it could be mint (pernicious runners that resist all attempts to remove or nice-smelling medicinal herb? why not both?), raspberry (the thorns play well in this exercise), mosquitoes (small, annoying, and capable of forcing outsized behavior modifications (bug spray, citronella candles, “we just won’t go over there at dusk”)), or whatever other species keeps popping up despite your best efforts. That’s you now.
Make a cup of tea. Slam every cabinet door, stomp angrily to the stove and back, and scream along with the tea kettle when it boils. Put the tea down first, and flop into your favorite chair in a huff. Glare over the rim of the mug at the pile of unsorted mail and let the warmth of your rage tonic fuel the tiniest, fun-sized fit of pique. Open ONE envelope.
Linger over your morning coffee long enough to imagine a future version of yourself. What they do, how they act, what they’re proud of. With this image held firmly in your mind, proceed to your underwear drawer and throw out all the shreddies. Future you is now one ragged pile of wrung-out elastic closer than they were five minutes ago.
It’s easy to forget these little moments of hope and triumph. But like I said: The future is going to be better whether it likes it or not. Gimme $8 and a vision of what you want a future to look like and I'll draw it. Let's get angry and make a better hereafter. Now through October, you can commission your very own piece of original art, all about the better future you want.
Postscript: In the time between writing and publishing, my pain levels have decreased noticeably, I can walk for twenty minutes at a stretch, and I’m back in the gym. So many things are possible now that were totally out of reach two weeks ago. I was right: the future is better, and I made it that way.
*it’s me, I’m people.
**mostly me, but also any other card-carrying member of The Funk.
***Offer not valid for kudzu, bamboo, or Japanese lantern flies. I said pervasive, not invasive. Don’t be a dick.
Upcoming Events
Stump The Artist Live Drawing | First Friday Oakland
Friday, October 2, 7- 9 PM
Get the best donor kebab that Oakland has to offer, and try to name something I can’t draw.
GoggleWorks Center for the Arts, Reading, PA
October 21- 26, 2026
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All images by Halloran Parry
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