Gloom and doom

It feels like this winter will never end.

You know that ad on TV for the vacation company? The one where people are stuck in their car in a huge snow drift, or the guy who's trying to shovel out a driveway piled deep in snow, or the woman at work who looks outside at 4:30 pm and it's pitch dark outside and snowing. They all start sobbing from the bleariness of winter.

God, I relate to that commercial. Especially the woman at work in the late afternoon darkness. There's just something about waking in the dark and returning home from work in the dark, and for such a long time, that's really starting to get under my skin. The days are perceptively longer now than they were two months ago at the winter solstice, but even still, it's not enough. I really think I'm starting to suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder. It never used to bother me, but both last year and this year, I find myself feeling low and hopeless as February plods along. It's the shortest month of the year, but it feels like the longest. Last year it was May before I started feeling like myself again. And here I am going into the busiest time of the year at work, when tempers are short and patience is a rare commodity.

It doesn't help that every time I turn on the TV or radio all I hear about is how many people are losing their jobs, how many companies are going bankrupt, how bad the economy is and how it's only going to get worse before it gets better. And then there's the environment news. I've been unfortunate enough to come across a few articles lately, written by true pessimists who say that it's too late to fix what we've done and that the next generation or, with luck, the one after that, will live in a ruined world with too many people and not enough clean water or fresh air, where they have to hide from the sun and scratch out a living from the broken down leftovers of our generation's excessive lifestyle.

And we won't even have the advantages they had in the dark ages, or even in the Great Depression. We're all so dependent on the modern conveniences now that we haven't got a clue how to survive in a world where we have no job, no home, no electricity, no heat. We've lost the ability and the tools to live off the teat.

It reaffirms that I made the right decision not to have children. I'm child-free by choice not because of the environment or any concerns about over-population. My decision was not a noble one, it was a selfish one. Kids don't interest me, they get on my nerves really fast, and I don't have any patience for them. They take too much time and attention, and I'm VERY selfish of my time and attention. Oh, many people have told me they think I'd have been a great mother, but I know better. I can barely take care of myself and a housecat, let alone be responsible for children. But with all this gloomy news lately, and in this most gloomy time of the year, I've been thinking there's another benefit to not having had children: I don't have to worry about them going into a bleak future where they have none of the advantages or luxuries that I had.

I lay in bed the other night, wide awake, after realizing that I am probably of the last generation that will enjoy progress, plenty and a decent lifestyle. We are at the end of the Renaissance, and heading back into the dark ages. And this time it will be our own damn fault too. Last time it was because of religious intolerance and the ignorance and stupidity it fertilized. This time it will be because of short-sightedness and greed.

I wonder how long the coming Dark Age will last, what the new Renaissance will be like. And what will bring it down in the end?