Pipe Dreams, Security & Horror
Photo by Lady K, Beziers, France
From another letter to a friend:
I don’t know that I’ll make any money writing. But here I am with this awesome opportunity to write, and sure, we have Smith’s memoir but I really always wanted to write about my childhood. And it would be such a shame if I let this opportunity evaporate — never even try — and then go to work in Chicago and never have the opportunity again.
I know it’s a dream, but without trying, how can I ever find if it’s successful? And another thing’s floating in my brain. Smith says Philip K. Dick wrote his first books in a real hurry to try to bring in money because he was under financial duress.
It feels right right now, to write.
We just watched the short film Shock Doctrine. It’s a documentary project by Naomi Klein and the director who did Children of Men. Klein just published a book with the same name. The film’s intent is to raise awareness of the extent and causes of our disastrous predicament. At one point in the documentary, they show the boat Tomorrow that was at the end of Children of Men, and talk about how the boat is a metaphor for how people have to live now. We have to be mobile and rootless, create our own floating communities. You can watch Shock Doctrine here: http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film
I think the flood myth is particularly relevant for our times.
I have a dream of security — you know the one — where I settle on some land and become self sufficient. One way people might survive is by creating sustainable lifestyles, living locally. Yet who knows where to establish a farm; the climate’s changing. There are going to be more droughts and floods and desertification and new pest infestations. Maybe no bees, no flowering crops. I don’t know if survival is possible.
I have this idea that Alaska might be a safe place to live. It’s warming up quickly and there’s a lot of wildlife. In the documentary, Naomi Klein says Alaskan land is going up in value and that people who find safe places to live are the ones who are going to survive. I was really surprised to hear this, because I haven’t yet heard anyone else talk about Alaska as a haven in the context of global warming. Yet I’ve also read that the government is pouring money into bridges and infrastructure there.
Smith says it’s a possibility. If we ever make money, we could buy land in Alaska and move there.
I don’t know any place is really safe. If civilization’s infrastructure goes under, Alaska will be cut off and will have to be an island unto itself. And it would be horrid to have such weird extended days and nights. And did you know this — it’s SHOCKING — I just now found out that in the “pristine” arctic, the indigenous people have a serious problem. Twice as many girls as boys are born now! It’s because all the contaminants end up really concentrated in the food chain there, the polar bears, the fish. The contaminants mimic hormones, and they affect the fetuses. We are IN the future now.
“Toxic Chemicals Blamed for the Disappearance of Arctic Boys” http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/09/12/3796/
Shock Doctrine
http://www.naomiklein.org/shock-doctrine/short-film