and all we can do about it is tend to our gardens?"--Leonard Wibberley, Adventures of an Elephant Boy.

I pretty much think things are hopeless, too; just what I know about the climate, Peak Oil, and the cycles of empires falling tells me that. On a personal level, I am a post-reproductive female of no special value, possessed of no great talents, low in status and small in territory. I am an utterly superfluous person, whether I look at it in the terms of our culture (I'm not "hot" and not rich and not Important) or in the stark language of ethology. I am a non-entity, citizen of a corrupt and crumbling empire on a small blue planet that for a while was called Earth.

Since there's no action I can take that will change any of this, I emulate the monk in the story who, chased off a cliff by a ferocious tiger, managed to grasp a vine and hang on. As he hung there, relieved at his narrow escape, two mice started to nibble the vine. Just then, the monk saw a strawberry within arm's length. Faced with the tiger above, and the jagged rocks below, both certain death, he picked the strawberry and ate it, and it was sweet.

We all die. The day will come when I do it too. Most people die in pain, with regrets, frustrated; I doubt I will be an exception. Most people have several bad years before they die; I most likely will as well. Most species go extinct sooner or later; all civilizations fall; and if nothing else happens, there's still the Heat Death Of The Universe to think about some billions of years from now. In a very real sense, there is no hope.

What gets me through it is enjoying the small things in the present moment. Right now I am fed and warm and safe. Right now I am able to turn on an electric light and have it work. Right now I still have a place to live indoors and am free of pain. Right now no bombs are falling on me and I can afford to give some of my bread to the ducks outside. That's all there is: right now.

Tucker