The mood out there is anything but winter, let alone a nuclear winter, but that only makes it more strange and dystopian. You’d get the impression, from the behavior of everyone out there, that the last two-plus years never happened. That there was no pandemic. No Covid-19. No Monkey Pox. Nothing going on anywhere in the world but right where we’re all standing. Maybe that’s good. It’s what most people wanted, for it all to go away so we can forget about it and carry on. That it was all a novel, once-in-a-lifetime event and nothing like it is likely to happen again. That there is no hostility in the world.

And why not. We’ve been living under the shadow of a potential worldwide, nuclear event for seventy years now, and we all go about our business like it’s not there at all. We’ve a vague idea of who is in charge of the nukes here, but none at all of who owns the codes for the former Soviet Bloc nations, or Israel, or Pakistan, China, India and whomever. We haven’t kept track of who might have made their own smaller devices, or any of the radioactive, fissionable material. It’s all a big mystery, but again, mystery implies that someone spends their time thinking about it. I plead guilty to not dwelling on the matters at hand. It all seems so much bigger than me and beyond anyone’s control. I think we’ve all just surrendered and we’ll wait for something horrible to happen to start clutching our pearls. With the exception of the Doomsday Preppers, there is little chance that many of us would make it, even in the places that don’t suffer a direct hit.

In short, we’re all proper fucked. Nuclear winter will happen at some point but most of us won’t be alive to see it. We’ll be gone by then, even if we survive the blasts, maybe even eaten by our hungry neighbors, or killed for the last can of Spam…. and then eaten a week later.

But that’s who we are. I remember saying early into the lockdown back in 2020 that I hope we learn something from all of it. I remember expressing doubt that we would, and if you go back into all my Covid-19 entries you’ll find those words of doubt. Not that it feels good to be right, but rather that my cognitive functions are still chugging along and that I don’t have to feel guilty for not having faith in people. No, most of us are still the same vapid cunts we were in 2019. We are self-righteous and sanctimonious and entitled and believe we are owed something for not being able to go to the gym and brunch for a while. We’re making up for the lost time when we had to sit with our own company and try not to think about things. It’s so much harder without idle chitchat from drinking buddies to not think about maybe doing things differently. We may have been forced into self-examination and god forbid that continues. No, a couple years is enough and it’s time to stop thinking again!

If you’re one of those privileged enough to be able to shut that shit off, maybe flip the toggle and go back to thinking about your fantasy football league. Are we really fans of these things or are we just desperate to not examine our own lives so we’re filling up space and time with nonsense?

Is it fair of me to make that call?

Sure, why not. Fuck it. I’ll judge what I like. And football doesn’t really capture my attention.

Fuck it, try the music.

So we’ll see what’s next. There will be another pandemic at some point. There remains a nuclear threat. We can’t have all that shit sitting out there without someone deciding to use it at some point. It’s like the old saying, if you hang out at the barber shop all the time, sooner or later you’re going to get your hair cut. It’s just the laws or probability. If something exist then at some point someone is going to use it. It’s just fucking math.

It’s all about the math.

I’m going to cut this short and go out and pretend that everything is okay in the world. Everything is lovely. Everything is awesome. Everything is cool when you’re part of the team.