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Grant yourself permission to be ALIVE, even as the world BURNS. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-07-18
It’s not normal to plan summer vacations around continental wildfires and floods while attempts to fix the planet are gutted, to go to bed and wake up each day with a new buckshot volley of outrageous news, to watch the dismantling of science, health, education, and now Elmo, Daniel Tiger and Big Bird. Most of us have enough massive problems and challenges in our own little lives. Should we tune everything out? Pretend it’s all OK? Stop caring about others and the planet so we can survive the present? When I tell you that at least half of my professional days are spent listening to people distraught about their own circumstances and the state of the world—that is a gross underestimate.
We are increasingly forced to accept defeats and despair, in matters ranging from our own aging and health problems, to the US regime dooming 4.5 million children around the world to preventable deaths over the next 5 years alone (and 10 million more adults), to the 16,000 preventable US deaths a year that will be added to the body count inflicted by those Medicaid cuts.
But the existential trick is to carry on and indeed thrive in parallel with the inevitable.Like one callous politician said in a much different context, we are all going to die.
I’ll remind us that there's a strange liberation that comes from truly understanding how bad things are, as well as truly grasping the absolute, inescapable finiteness of being. When we fully acknowledge climate data and witness the slow motion apocalypse, when we see authoritarian meanness metastasizing on fear, when we sense that civilization itself feels incredibly fragile—sometimes the unexpected can happen. Instead of crushing us, this clarity can unburden us.
It's a similar paradox that strikes many people facing terminal illness, old age, even midlife crises. The diagnosis or predicament that should destroy often becomes a catalyst that triggers how to truly live. Suddenly, petty drama doesn't matter. The grudge we’ve held for years feels absurd. What matters becomes crystal: this good conversation around the dinner table, this dark field of little meteoric fireflies, this quiet moment with someone we love and cherish.
Climate grief as we watch children horrifically being washed away can work the same way. When we truly accept that the seasons themselves are changing, that the world our children inherit is fundamentally different, that we ain’t seen nothing yet—the trivial concerns that consume too much of our mental energy start to rebalance. The performance review we were anxious about, the social media flame war, the impulse to accumulate more and more stuff—all of it can seem suddenly ridiculous against the backdrop of civilizational crisis and unthinkable personal loss.
This isn't nihilism. It's the opposite. It's an awakening to what's actually precious.
When we accept that nothing is guaranteed—not the climate, not democracy, not even tomorrow—we stop taking the good moments for granted. The dinner with friends becomes a giddy celebration rather than a routine. Do you remember your first dinner with friends after letting down whatever personal pandemic level of caution you held firm? Spring flowers blooming and the dawn chorus chorusing carry additional weight because we understand that blooms wilt and dry up, and even incessantly chirping city sparrows can still be wondrous until they shut up. The conversations with our children, from casual to heavy, take on urgency and preciousness when we consider the world they're inheriting. We are compelled to be sincere with our concerns, yet stubborn with our joys and frivolous fun.
Such awareness breeds a peculiar form of fearlessness. When we've already sat with the possibility of civilizational collapse, or forfeiting our 250 year old democracy just in time for that birthday, smaller fears lose their grip. The fear of professional failure, social judgment, or personal discomfort pales in comparison. We become willing to take risks we never would have considered before—to create, to speak up, to live authentically. To be an inherently shy family doctor who decides to say F it, and then go and write a public newsletter for 4 years with 234 posts and counting for example.
The key insight is that crisis strips away illusions about permanence, revealing what we truly value. It forces the fundamental questions: How do we want to spend our limited time? What kind of person do we want to be in the face of uncertainty?
Those who fully grasp our current moment often report strange gratitude alongside their outrage. They're grateful to be alive when their actions matter. They're grateful to see clearly rather than living in comfortable denial. They're grateful for the urgency that prevents them from sleepwalking through their days.
I’ll practice what I’m preaching about gratitude quickly: This week I’m grateful to all the astronomers, scientists, researchers, engineers, and dreamers who brought us toys fit for the gods. Like the James Webb Space Telescope, which celebrated its 3rd birthday last week. Zoom in all you want, and you still can’t see our tiny, precious pale dot. NASA released these for the occasion:
Righteous outrage at those who are gutting NASA, science, public health, health care, hospitals, universities, free speech and a free press doesn't mean abandoning hope or stopping the fight for a better future. It means holding both possibilities—potential catastrophe and potential transformation—simultaneously. It means living as if both this day and the future matter immensely.
The person who integrates this awareness doesn't become morbid or defeated. They become more alive, more present, more purposeful. They understand that meaning doesn't require guarantees. They discover that the most profound response to potential endings is to live more fully in the present moment while working tirelessly to create change. Or to simply endure medical illness. Or to withstand the slings and arrows and aching knees of aging while still heading out for another day under a blue sky.
We can honor how heroicly bright each and every conscious, sentient life burns in defiance of the dark, and how good it feels to stand on common ground while we are here.
Our global crises can serve as an unexpected form of spiritual practice—a constant reminder of impermanence that calls us to live with greater intention, courage, and love.
From the start, it was all impermanent anyway.
Oh.. and have a great weekend :)
~
This post was originally posted here on my Substack called EXAMINED.
Join me there if you want, too.
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