Keep on pluggin' away...
Wow, I went the entire month of August without writing a blog post. I thought about writing one a number of times, but it never came together. One of the big reasons why not, though, is that the subject most on my mind didn't make sense. Why write a blog post about why you weren't writing blog posts?
Yet here I am, doing pretty much that.
It's been a terrific summer for my writing. For some other things, too, but my writing has gotten into a rhythm I've rarely seen since I had to go back to the day-job world. Talking to my publisher at the California Homeschool Conference back in June, hearing how excited they are about the Math Biography series I'm doing, made me even more fired up about writing it. Talking to people at the Satellites & Education Conference in July encouraged me even more. This is an enormous project, the biggest one I've ever taken on, and I don't want to leave it sitting around. It means too much to me.
At the same time, what's going on around us has become harder and harder for me to take, and that's only going to get worse in the coming weeks. The upcoming election may be the most important midterm in the country's history, but we're in for a rough ride no matter how it turns out. If Republicans keep both chambers of Congress, Trump will have the green light to go full-on fascist. If Democrats win one or both chambers, their attempt to bring Trump's crime family to justice will be met with all-out war. And that's even before the 2020 presidential election hoopla gets started.
I've thought many times whether to write about just how bad I think things are going to get. Would there be a point to it? Let me see how briefly I can summarize it
The Republican Party now consists of people who want to go back to the good old days when wealthy, "Christian," white men ran everything, and everyone else minded their places. Their efforts will fail, but that doesn't mean they'll quit trying. As power becomes harder for them to hold onto, their methods will get more extreme. I fully expect some sort of violence to break out when they finally go down. Probably not to the level of a "civil war," but possibly some kind of organized, armed insurgency.
At the same time, the climate is not sitting around waiting for us to sort out our political issues, but I don't expect the people in charge to do much about it. Certainly there are people who care, but I don't know that anyone can muster the political will to do what's really going to be necessary. The changes our world needs are just too big. The economic model the world runs on, based on the idea of constant, unlimited "growth," is unsustainable. We've pushed nature too far out of balance. If we don't correct it, nature will correct it for us - and that won't be pretty. (And before you scream accusations of "SOCIALISM!" let me just say that I don't know what the answer is. In my college days, I believed the industrialization and colonization of space was the answer, but now I see that's not going to happen quickly enough, if it ever does.)
Aren't you glad I haven't been posting about all that?
My only answer, the only one that works for me, is to keep my attention focused on the things I can do, ignoring as much as possible the things I can't do. Last winter, I told my mom that my books were my answer to Trump, because I wanted them to help the upcoming generations who will have to clean up this mess we're leaving them. I still believe that. Right now, I think it's the most important thing I can be doing, and so that's where I'm going to focus my attention.
I'm not disappearing from the internet completely - I couldn't even if I wanted to, which I don't. But I do expect to be keeping my head down much of the time, especially through the election and any lame duck shenanigans the Republicans might try. This blog will still be around, and I'll continue to post here when I get the chance. Meanwhile, it's back to work I go.
Yet here I am, doing pretty much that.
It's been a terrific summer for my writing. For some other things, too, but my writing has gotten into a rhythm I've rarely seen since I had to go back to the day-job world. Talking to my publisher at the California Homeschool Conference back in June, hearing how excited they are about the Math Biography series I'm doing, made me even more fired up about writing it. Talking to people at the Satellites & Education Conference in July encouraged me even more. This is an enormous project, the biggest one I've ever taken on, and I don't want to leave it sitting around. It means too much to me.
At the same time, what's going on around us has become harder and harder for me to take, and that's only going to get worse in the coming weeks. The upcoming election may be the most important midterm in the country's history, but we're in for a rough ride no matter how it turns out. If Republicans keep both chambers of Congress, Trump will have the green light to go full-on fascist. If Democrats win one or both chambers, their attempt to bring Trump's crime family to justice will be met with all-out war. And that's even before the 2020 presidential election hoopla gets started.
I've thought many times whether to write about just how bad I think things are going to get. Would there be a point to it? Let me see how briefly I can summarize it
The Republican Party now consists of people who want to go back to the good old days when wealthy, "Christian," white men ran everything, and everyone else minded their places. Their efforts will fail, but that doesn't mean they'll quit trying. As power becomes harder for them to hold onto, their methods will get more extreme. I fully expect some sort of violence to break out when they finally go down. Probably not to the level of a "civil war," but possibly some kind of organized, armed insurgency.
At the same time, the climate is not sitting around waiting for us to sort out our political issues, but I don't expect the people in charge to do much about it. Certainly there are people who care, but I don't know that anyone can muster the political will to do what's really going to be necessary. The changes our world needs are just too big. The economic model the world runs on, based on the idea of constant, unlimited "growth," is unsustainable. We've pushed nature too far out of balance. If we don't correct it, nature will correct it for us - and that won't be pretty. (And before you scream accusations of "SOCIALISM!" let me just say that I don't know what the answer is. In my college days, I believed the industrialization and colonization of space was the answer, but now I see that's not going to happen quickly enough, if it ever does.)
Aren't you glad I haven't been posting about all that?
My only answer, the only one that works for me, is to keep my attention focused on the things I can do, ignoring as much as possible the things I can't do. Last winter, I told my mom that my books were my answer to Trump, because I wanted them to help the upcoming generations who will have to clean up this mess we're leaving them. I still believe that. Right now, I think it's the most important thing I can be doing, and so that's where I'm going to focus my attention.
I'm not disappearing from the internet completely - I couldn't even if I wanted to, which I don't. But I do expect to be keeping my head down much of the time, especially through the election and any lame duck shenanigans the Republicans might try. This blog will still be around, and I'll continue to post here when I get the chance. Meanwhile, it's back to work I go.
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