I know that the world is going to end, but that doesn’t mean I don’t care.

I tend to get weird looks of discomfort, annoyance, puzzlement, concern when I bring this up. I never really understood the issue. I mean, it’s a given, right? Everything ends. Everything dies. Suffering is a simply a part of reality. People die. Animals die. Species die. Societies collapse and die. Extinction is just part of the deal. So why do so many people feel the need to act otherwise? I genuinely don’t understand it.

Okay. That’s not entirely true. I understand the desire to pretend otherwise, but I don’t feel the need to give in to that illusion. After all, that’s what it is. An illusion. Hell, a delusion, really. I gain no comfort from pretending otherwise. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. Knowing that I am lying to myself fills me with a sense of self-loathing, embarrassment, and shame. It just feels…wrong.

But I’m not a nihilist. Really, I’m not. At least not in the colloquial sense of “ve believe in nahsing, Lebowski!” Nihilists are often dreadfully boring people. Boring and cowardly. I have very little sympathy nor time for nihilists. Again, kinda like with folks who can’t help but cling to false hope. I understand it, but I don’t like it. What’s more self-serving and pathetic than pretending that nothing matters, but then engaging in some hedonistic bullshit, silently admitting that, in fact, something does matter: one’s own sense of comfort and pleasure. It’s not that I hold the hedonism against them (okay, that’s not true, sometimes I do), but it’s the lying that gets me. At least be honest, you’re not a nihilist, you’re a hedonist. Own it.

But I digress...

So, I live full well knowing that everything is going to end. It’s the centerpiece of much of my studies: anthropogenic existential risk. I’m morbidly fascinated by all the ways humanity has developed the means of our own destruction. Nuclear weapons. Climate change and ecosystem collapse. Unaligned Artificial Super Intelligence. Manufactured pandemics and novel bioweapons. An over-dependency on fragile, complex technologies and infrastructures that, when disrupted, shut this whole show down. It doesn’t bother me.

Okay, that’s not true either. I bothers me a lot. It’s not so much the end that bothers me, it’s the way it happens.

I said I’m not a nihilist, but I live my life accepting that it’s game over. Not if, just when. That’s our lot. No one gets out alive. No thing gets out alive nor unscarred. It sounds so depressing. At least that’s what I’m told. My colleagues look at me askance, concern on their faces, physically drawing away from me…jokingly...? I don’t know.

So there I am, doing a “climate emotions” exercise with some colleagues at a workshop. We’re supposed to line ourselves up on spectrum based on a stated feeling. For example: “how strong/often do you feel the emotion of fear in relation to climate change?” I end up on the far end of feeling little-to-no fear. It’s not that I don’t feel fear, it’s that it’s just not useful. We’re asked to discuss our feelings with those near us. This is not my first time doing this exercise. I’m asked to explain myself. I struggle. This is nothing new. I don’t really know how to describe emotions or what I’m feeling. It’s not because I don’t feel feelings, I do, but because I don’t really know how to conceptualize them. I sure as hell don’t know how to convey them into words. My interoception is all kinds of fucked. But that’s another story for another day. Or maybe just another paragraph. Fuck if I know where any of this is going...

Anyway. As part of the activity, we’re asked to explain our reasoning. So, I gotta explain why I’m not afraid. I tell them that I live knowing that this is all going to end. I live with the knowledge and understanding that humanity is done for: “on its way out the door.” Game over. The end. Draw curtain. *Poof* and we’re gone.

I just take that as a given. There’s no debate in my mind. It’s not if, it’s simply when. It’s the same for climate change. It’s happening. It will continue to happen. We can pretend all we want that “there’s still hope.” [spoiler alert: There’s not.] That’s a delusion. The climate is fucked. We are fucked. Though, I don’t express quite all that. I don’t feel the need to scold the concept of “hope” even if I find the concept kinda laughable. After all, I like these people. Their hearts are in the right place. They wouldn’t be here if they weren’t. These are colleagues. Comrades. Collaborators. They’re good people. No need to be a dick…even if it’s not my intention and is merely my brusque radical honesty coming to the forefront. Did I mention that I’m Autistic? Yeah. Turns out. Late in life diagnosis. I’ll return to that, because I think it’s a piece of this puzzle. I’m also an ADHDer, so get used to the tangents. Welcome to my mind?

So back to the emotions exercise. As I’m stating to the group my living with the knowledge that humanity is donezo and climate change is a given, so why be afraid? Yeah. I don’t think most people knew what to make of that. So, I quickly scramble to explain that I’m not a nihilist. Bullshit? No. Though I’m sure it sounds like it to others. But I know that I’m not. Far from it.

So what the fuck is my deal, anyway? Because I sure as hell sound like a nihilist. Well, maybe not a nihilist, but for sure a cynic. If I’m certain that humanity is done for and that climate collapse is a forgone conclusion, why am I even here? What the hell am I doing in a faculty learning community focused on teaching climate change? More than that, a learning group focused on integrating emotions into climate teaching. Why the hell have I spent years teaching this topic? Those poor students. Jesus Fucking Christ, right? Getting stuck with this asshole cynic? Yeah. I get it. But I do care. I mean I really, truly, with all of my being care about this issue and can’t imagine not fighting for something “better.” But, I also know it’s game over. It feels contradictory. It sounds schizophrenic.

But this moment gets me thinking. It gets me thinking about how I’ve never actually thought this out. Really. I’ve never actually stopped and tried to disentangle this pretty fucking extreme sounding contradiction. Standing outside in the sun, in front of others, most of whom I really don’t know very well at all, yeah, that’s not the time or place for me to figure it out. My mind just sorta seizes up. I mean, I was talking, but fuck if I know what I was saying. Based on some of the expressions, I kind of worry maybe it wasn’t the most appropriate thing. Of course, that could just be my Autism.

Anyway. That’s what I’m here to do. Figure this shit out. How can I be both dreadfully cynical about the future, living under the assumption that collapse is merely a forgone conclusion, yet simultaneously remain incapable of not acting on it anyway?

So, I’ve got some ideas. I don’t really know how they all fit together yet, but viscerally it all makes total sense to me. That’s probably why I never really stopped to think about it. It just feels natural. Who the fuck needs words? An explanation? A written defense? It just feels like an extension of myself. But, if I[m being honest, I’ve never questioned it. I think I’ve just assumed that it made intuitive sense to others. I’m beginning to realize that perhaps it really doesn’t. At least not to many.

“Find the others.” I feel like this is popping up a lot in my life lately. I first encountered it years ago when I read Douglas Rushkoff’s “Team Human.” I’ve been listening to his podcast a lot lately. But I’ll return to that, because he’s someone who I think gets this contradiction (he has been thinking of himself as a doula in these weird times.) Since my Autism diagnosis—and more than that, since starting therapy with a new therapist, someone who is also AuDHD—they’ve been pushing me to “find other neurodivergents.” To find a community.

Maybe that’s part of the reason why I’m doing this, in the hopes that maybe in writing all this out it will help me find others. Those that understand where I’m coming from. Those that don’t look at me like I’m fucking mad, or a psychopath, or horribly depressed, or misanthropic. I mean, I suppose that I am kinda all of those things, to some degree (aren’t we all?), but there’s more to it than that.

At least, I think there is.