Journal of a Sabbatical

nihilism and fatalism

June 2, 1997

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or is that nihilistic fatalism? of 401Ks and the Cuban missile crisis What me worry? Bizarre conversation with right wing Anne this morning at Starbucks. It terrifies her that I am not worried about having enough money for my old age. I was gonna say retirement but I am already retired I guess. I told her my oft told tale of walking over the Washington Street Bridge across the Mass Pike with my buddy Julianna in the 6th grade during the Cuban missile crisis and realizing with absolute certainty we would all be dead long before we were old enough to collect social security. Anne was shocked at what she called my fatalism. I realize the cold war is over and there's probably not going to be a nuclear holocaust in my lifetime, but there is some residual feeling of nihilistic fatalism about the future lodged in the lower right hand corner of my brain. We know not the day nor the hour... Anyway, I do have a 401K, which I won't touch even when the sabbatical nest egg and the Antarctica fund run out. I'll get a job before I touch the 401K. And I don't mind not having my life all mapped out for the next 19 years until retirement. Well, some days I mind it but not at the moment. When I find the perfect future career I'll know it. Since ecoterrorism involves too much travel, maybe I could just get a job on a whale watch boat out of Newburyport. I don't think ecoterrorists have much in the way of pension benefits anyway. nausea hell is other people - at least when they're mowing the lawn I've been lying on my bed for much of the afternoon trying to will away nausea. The landscapers are mowing the front lawn and the air is already heavy and stagnant under an oppressive gray sky. Now it's heavy, stagnant, and smells like lawn mower exhaust and grass cuttings. I feel like I'm breathing grease and gasoline. I think this wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't had a really awful eggplant sub from The Pizza Factory for lunch. It's 57 degrees out and I'm sweating. What's wrong with this picture? Yes, the degrees are Fahrenheit, wise guys. So why am I boiling? I went to CVS to pick up the photos of the cove from yesterday and it was so stuffy in there that huge beads of sweat popped from the top of my head while I gasped for breath convinced I wouldn't be able to keep breathing long enough to see how the photos came out. My car felt stuffy too so I drove home with the windows open giving myself a bit of a chill. Now my house is stuffy despite the open windows and the Red Sox are losing to the Yankees as usual. reading and writing I finally succeeded in reading a book. I forget how long it's been. Several weeks anyway. I just finished The Cat Who Tailed a Thief by Lillian Jackson Braun, which Joan-east had lent me. She was the one who got me interested in the Cat Who series to begin with. When she first told me about them I read all of them, in order, one after another in a few weeks and then waited impatiently for the next one to come out. Braun doesn't write them fast enough to satisfy the craving! Anyway, Joan-east had bought the latest one, so she's passing it around the walking group. I especially like the scenes involving used books. Hey anything with cats and books has got to be good... I am still having some trouble reading though. I especially have trouble with scrolling through long text pages on the web. This morning in my nihilistic fatalistic mood I concluded that since in the future there would be no paper books only electronic ones I would be condemned to tap the scroll key until my right hand went numb again and then be deprived of reading forever because my hands just won't be able to used the keyboard. Actually, this is a recurring nightmare ever since I read Sven Birkerts' The Gutenberg Elegies. I used to argue with people that books would never go away because they're too convenient. Computers are still too big and too vulnerable and have too short a battery life to take to the beach for an afternoon of trashy novels. So, I tell myself. But computers are getting smaller, and batteries are getting longer lived. But will Moby Dick fit in a palm top? What will happen when it's not just the compulsive game players and tech writers who get RSI but the avid readers as well? Tap, tap, tap. Page down. Page up. Page down.Page down. Ouch ouch ouch. Oops dropped the darn computer overboard. It's Davy Jones' locker for you matey. Aye captain, her arm's fallen off... No wonder I can't write!

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Reading: Earth Warrior by David Morris