By Michael Jewell
It’s a blackout, and that instantaneous panic flashes down my backbone before my irritated resignation sets in. I break out the candles from the top shelf of my closet and avoid opening the refrigerator. While I know that this blackout is only an abrupt interruption in the life of our city, this thought clings to my imagination: that the power is not coming back on. My thinking is inspired by the fact that in a world driven back into the wilderness, before the widespread adoption of anti-bacterial hand sanitizer or viral internet marketing, I will be among the first to die.
I am among the weak, those hopelessly coddled by the creature comforts of the Western world. I can’t build a fire, hunt and butcher my meat or properly maintain the bicycle I hope will aid my phasing the automobile out of existence without sheepishly paying for the services of a specialist. The idyllic simplicity of a country hermitage is so seductive to me, never mind that I wouldn’t know what to do with myself. I am among those hopelessly spoiled suburbanites who romantically yearn for simpler times, writing poetry to the moon, but ignorant of its phase. Not that I see the progress of science as necessarily bad.
The smallpox vaccine and the industrial revolution are a trade-off I’m willing to live with, however grudgingly. Every time I catch myself railing against the horrific impact of the military industrial complex, I must remind myself that Mother Nature is hardly more hospitable company. Mankind’s lust for control over the natural world is what allowed a whelp like me to survive past infancy.
Organic produce grown on small farms in the spirit of a long-held tradition, is now widely consumed by rich people. This amuses me endlessly. It’s a highlight of our rich inner-conflict as a species. It seems to indicate a human monologue of “technology will eventually wipe out humanity, but bugs and grass are icky, thank you very much.” The trade-off between safe but tasteless food and the risky, sensual bliss of Iberian ham and raw, just-shucked oysters pulls this into focus brilliantly.
The impulse for science is a remarkable human trait, among our best. To catalogue which mushrooms make a fabulous stew and which will liquefy your nervous system, so that our descendents won’t have to play that deadly game, is a noble pursuit indeed. It brings us out of the dark to no longer fear disease and natural disaster, and teaches us that sacrificing a virgin to the sun-god does nothing to help us. Global capitalism, eugenics, deforestation, and worse yet, armies of robots smart and powerful enough to enslave us, are products of our equally human characteristic, greed, which is among our worst.
If a weakling like myself is to survive, I’ll have to know which part of nature brings out the best in me, and which part of society evolved to protect me from nature. I’m lucky to live in a century where writing can earn me a living, and in the instance of a blackout, the lights will always come back on.
