AnnilyGreen, via Signalnoise
(to keep in line with the depressing talk around here)
It's been a devastating week in world affairs and, although my heart grieves for Japan, I am now realizing that my melancholia is all Japan's fault. Japan is to blame for this week's ambivalence and despondency. What else could it be? At the outset I was like everyone else: enraptured by the images, struck by the destruction and chaos -- a possible glimpse at what we in California may experience sometime in the future. And then, I stopped. I stopped wanting to hear. I stopped wanting to see. As news got worse I retreated even farther. I banned any Japan-related conversation. I avoided talk of imminent destruction and hushed anyone whose mouth I felt close to uttering the word "earthquake."
Thanks to the book I recently finished, I've spent the last few weeks contemplating what life would be like in the face of total destruction and how I would raise up to deal with it. My mind decided that I should be stoic and take what was coming with the certainty that whatever the outcome, my fate had been settled. But my thoughts up until March 11 were just theoretical; the "Big One" in California only a far-off nightmare. After the quake everything became real. Of course we've had other quakes in recent years, Haiti being one of the most devastating. But for some reason, the combination of the quake, the tsunami and then the possible nuclear fall-out had more of an impact. With Japan it's been the triumvirate of fear: not only the Earth threatening destruction but also technology and humanity menacingly reminding us that we have more to fear than nature itself. And really, what kind of a world is that? A world where at any moment our lives, homes, and futures could be shattered? The totality of that just hit me hard. However, I now realize that by avoiding the destruction I've also avoided the perseverance reflected in the faces of survivors and the one constant in this whole week of flux for Japan: life goes on and we move courageously forward.
