Open Letter to a Discouraged Youth

My dear young friend, I have had you in my thoughts and in my heart lately. Your mom told me you take antidepressant medication and that some days you can’t get out of bed. I have trouble getting out of bed some days myself, but mostly because of my worn-out back. At least your body still works, so you should enjoy that and not take it for granted. But that’s probably not a pep talk you want to hear today. Today the world is unkind, chaotic, horrifyingly violent, and teetering on the verge of cataclysmic disaster. Us stupid humans appear to be going down the drain, and it looks like we will take quite a few other species (far more magnificent than ourselves) down the drain with us. You must wonder how we got here, why so few grownups have been sufficiently alarmed to take action over the years, what diabolical stories the profiteers tell themselves to justify their continued greed in the face of planetary destruction, and where to look for a shred of hope. I would like to think that you can still find comfort in humor, because it’s a powerful weapon to ward off the demons. While I generally use humor liberally, I find your state of mind quite unfunny.

Humans have made an impressive mess of things, haven’t we? I don’t believe in a god-entity in the typical Judeo-Christian biblical sense so I have no divinity to blame for the present state of the world, which is too bad, because I would welcome the opportunity to roast a divine being for allowing people to selfishly cling to practices that damage the environment, such as eating meat, driving gas-guzzling vehicles, and voting for a climate-change-denying white supremacist for president, when that god could just as easily strike these idiots with lightning for such infractions. Perhaps it’s just as well, because if such a divinity existed, then it’s quite possible that I could be struck by lightning for heating my house with propane gas, flying an airplane to Oregon to see my grandson, eating cheese, or putting collards into a plastic bag at the grocery store.

You have likely heard plenty of arguments cajoling you to appreciate the good things in life, of which there are many to raise your spirits. Obviously your spirits are not raised enough by those good things, not even by the small miracles of daily life, to convince you to get out of bed in the morning. Consider distracting yourself from despair by choosing some small productive thing to do to help save the planet or to make life better for a few people, and then just do that thing rather than letting despondency paralyze you and render you inert. That’s what I do. I don’t believe that what I do makes much difference in the larger scheme of things. After all, I’m less than a dot on a dot of a planet in a dot of a galaxy in a vast universe. From that perspective, I don’t know why I bother to do anything. Pass the dark chocolate. But it makes me feel better to do something positive rather than dwelling on the overwhelming realities of environmental collapse and human suffering. Look at Greta Thunberg, who started out from a place of despair (she says she couldn’t get out of bed in the morning) and moved on to skipping school every Friday to register her fury by standing outside the Swedish parliament building. Just when you think you can’t make a difference, life takes a surprising turn. She became a worldwide phenomenon and was handed a microphone so she could scold world leaders for their astonishing inaction on climate issues and other crimes against future generations. Go Greta. You don’t have to be Greta, but I think that doing something toward the good will improve your mood.

Honestly, I feel you. I do. When I was a teenager like you, I belonged to a club at school called PYE (Protect Your Environment). Our club had about four members. None of my peers were worried about the environment back then. Perhaps we were all more worried about nuclear holocaust. We grew up in the shadow of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, doing nuclear bomb drills by hiding under our desks. I wondered if I would grow up, if an apocalyptic catastrophe would do us all in before I graduated from high school. The year was 1969. No one recycled. No one in suburbia had a clue what composting was about. We had no concept of organic food or what it meant to eat clean vegetables. Rachel Carson’s book Silent Spring came out in 1962 so the effect of toxins in our environment was just dawning on us. I was one of the very few teenagers worried about our climate and the future of Earth. And yet I grew up, was not blown to bits, went to college, made a career for myself, married, and had children. I boycotted dirty companies. I wrote, and I marched, and I even went to jail once for doing nonviolent civil disobedience – not that those things made any significant difference. After the 2016 election, I could not get out of bed in the morning just like you. I became sick to my stomach, literally. It was not a healthy way for losing weight, although it worked. I had a pretty clear picture of the grim future about to slam into us under this predatory, greedy, ignorant, self-obsessed, illiterate president and his cronies. How could I have let down my guard for eight years under Obama? I feel so foolish, in retrospect, for thinking things would be OK, and for thus relaxing my grip. I know the bloody, gruesome, shameful historical foundation of this country. I know history does not go away. I know people want to carry on in their lives and not make the difficult changes and hard choices necessary to protect the environment. Yet I danced in the street with a tambourine on the night of Obama’s inauguration. The future I dared to imagine on that night has vanished.

I wish I could tell you that it gets better as you get older, but that’s not the case. Coping with your youthful depression is good practice for what’s to come in a few decades. Think of it as a rehearsal. You can use it to develop your personal, workable coping mechanisms. With age, you will not only have to contend with global horrors of mind-boggling magnitude and scope, but also with the everyday small-scale personal tragedies of your own intimate circle. Plant roses. You will need their mysterious beauty and heavenly fragrance. Did you know that every rose bush has its own scent but humans can’t discern the subtle differences? People must all smell the same to roses.

Take my week this week. Just one week. A microcosmic example of the macrocosmic mixed bag dished out by the universe. I’ll start with the bad news. A friend was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer (this is the third friend diagnosed with pancreatic cancer this year). I attended a memorial for a genius-inventor friend who slowly lost his brilliant mind to early onset Alzheimer’s over the course of ten years and finally died a few weeks ago. My diabetic husband had a scary low-blood-sugar episode, which happens from time to time to remind us of our fragility. (I accused him of periodically staging a near-death experience so that I won’t take him for granted.) Two mass shootings occurred. A cyclone pummeled India, upturning the lives of 100 million people. The Palestinians and Israelis shot rockets at each other again. Plastic is still choking the ocean and strangling sea life, although this is nothing new this week, it has been on my mind. I also had good news. A dear friend and his wife had the film (called “Crip Camp”) they are making about growing up disabled and about the disability rights movement picked up by the Obamas as one of their Higher Ground Productions film projects. I think my friends will eventually meet the Obamas, so I told them to invite them to our house for Thanksgiving. (Which we will still be having if god continues not to exist and thus we are not struck by lightning for roasting a turkey even though meat production is killing the planet.) The 20-something son of a childhood friend was hired as the western regional representative for the Association of State Democratic Committees (operating under the Democratic National Committee). I have known him since he was a toddler, and now he is an astonishing mover and shaker for one so young. I plan to drop everything and go work on his campaign one day when he’s old enough to run for office. My roses started blooming. Country House, a locally born, bred, and owned horse, won the Kentucky Derby. My father walks 10,000 steps a day at age 90. My grandson asked me to sing with him on screen chat (no one ever asks me to sing). I landed a grant for a super organization to provide mental health services to traumatized children and youth, so if you want to move to Santa Barbara, my dear, then I know where you can find terrific therapeutic services. You would be near the ocean, which is still gorgeous because the plastic and dead whales are not visible from the beach. The ocean even produces delicious seaweed, which I love to eat. That’s a glimpse into one week in the life of an old lady (with so much else left out, of course). My point is that every minute of every day of every year holds in it grief, loss, tragedy, comedy, joy, delight, wonder, you name it. What you hold onto and what you let go of depends on your choices minute by minute. Negative or positive? It’s a choice.

Are you still reading me? I want to give you something to help you carry on, to help you hold onto the positive and make a joyous life for yourself. I want to give you words that will help you get out of bed in the morning. I want to do this even though the truth is that the world is a mess, has been a mess for quite some time. Things will get more difficult, more frightening, more challenging, more depressing. World leaders are not hearing Greta and powerful corporations will not quit putting profit first. I want to give you hope where there is little basis for hope. So here are three thoughts for you to consider. First, humans are resilient and adaptable creatures with the potential to change. As the ground moves under our feet, people will create and invent. They will have epiphanies. Young people will shine with brilliance, and will meet many of the challenges that seem insurmountable. Second, our miraculous planet – so breathtakingly magnificent in so many ways that ancient people decided only a god could have created such a glorious place – has not disappeared. We have lost much, and will lose more in the coming months and years, but not all is lost. Plus, we make new discoveries about the natural world every day. Everyday marvels surround us, such as the fact that every rose has its own fragrance. Third, humans have the potential to do extraordinary things together. We can, and do, connect with other humans with whom we have the good fortune to share this time in history. Locally, within a personal circle, we have the embrace of our friends and family. Globally, we have heroic people visible on a larger stage to inspire us, such as Greta, Malala, the Parkland students, William Kamkwamba, AOC, and the many, many others at work to heal, preserve, and improve the world. The Obamas have not abandoned us. They continue to promote positive change and support people implementing visionary initiatives around the globe. Here’s the takeaway:  find your small special task, your niche, your passion, and step into that space to do whatever you can with your talents and your genius to make a difference. Sometimes something that seems like a small difference winds up making a big difference (such as Greta’s Fridays at the parliament). Then go to bed at night feeling that you did something worth doing and wake up in the morning feeling energized to go out and do more.

What broke my heart on election night 2016, what breaks my heart still, is my grief for the loss of your future, my grandson’s future, and the future of generations to come. But lately I don’t feel the same depth of despair. Recently I have read some interesting science fiction and other types of visionary writing that have altered my perspective. While we have gone beyond the tipping point to take things back to a familiar equilibrium, that does not mean that the future is dead. It means the future will look very different. These days, with great curiosity, I have started to wonder what it will look like. I wonder what young people will discover, invent, create, and transform. I wonder, with surprising, unexpected optimism, what “terrible beauty” (thank you, Yeats) is about to be born.

That’s all I have for you. Does it help? Because I’m depending on you. What gives me hope? You do, my dear young friend. You do.