This is my 52nd post on this blog, and the implications of that are clear. This blog is a weekly, and there are 52 weeks in a year, so this means that it has been a year since I started this blog. If you want to get really technical, next week would be a closer approximation of the anniversary of the first post, since the first one was numbered 1 instead of 0. And this is actually my 53rd post; a few days before the post I later renamed to Exit 1, I posted a short introductory article basically saying that this blog wasn’t going to have a topic or a format. But even so, this is the 52nd week that I have written in this blog. This means that the events that inspired the first few posts, including my process of job searching, the Isla Vista massacre, and my rediscovery of a certain early-90s teen pop quintet, happened almost a year ago now.
Time seems to pass faster and faster as I get older. It is hard to believe that I have been writing this blog for a year already. When I was in elementary school in the 1980s, the concept of “the year 2000” involved connotations of some exotic future date with robots and flying cars. Now the year 2000 is far enough in the past to bring about feelings of nostalgia. Kids born in 2000 are in high school already.
I’ve always found it fascinating how society’s collective perception of the future has changed over the years. Among a growing awareness of environmental destruction, overpopulation, and sustainability issues, the optimistic Jetsons world of robot housekeepers and flying cars for everyone has given way to the dark post-apocalyptic dystopias of The Hunger Games and The Maze Runner. And as usual, those with strong opinions on things have strong opinions on this issue, and neither side sees the whole story. On one side, you have those who believe that the way to prevent worldwide catastrophe and destruction is more government regulation, telling people what they can and can’t do. They fail to see that people like their freedom, especially in many parts of the US, and more importantly, they fail to see how their sense of control can stifle innovation, which may bring creative solutions someday to some of this generation’s problems.
On the other side, you have the skeptics, the deniers, those who read studies saying that the science is flawed and that, for example, all of our energy crises would be solved if only the government would let us drill for more oil in more places. The problem here is that, even if you allow that climate data is within the bounds of what is caused by natural variability, even if you make the most optimistic projections about how much petroleum is left on Earth, this view is still missing some key realities. Even if natural variations in climate are causing the drought in California and the melting of ice sheets in Greenland and Antarctica, it is still happening. This head-in-the-sand mentality doesn’t do anything about what is actually happening right now, regardless of the cause.. Even if there is a lot more petroleum lying under protected wildlife habitat waiting to be drilled, Earth is not infinite, and new petroleum is not being created on anything near the time scale required to replenish what is being used today. We may run out in 20 years, we may run out in 300 years, but we will run out someday. And of course on both sides of the issue, you have hypocrites who only care about the image they give to the world rather than how their lifestyle actually contributes to the problem. But that’s another story.
I feel a bit conflicted about my own lifestyle at times. I drive a lot, especially since starting my new job last year. My social life is spread across three counties, and my job is in a fourth county that is not in the same direction as the other three. I’ve also often questioned my decision to settle in the suburbs, especially now that my job is not in my neighborhood. For seven years I rode my bike to work if it wasn’t raining, but now work is 25 miles away. Moving near work would solve that problem while also creating other problems. My work is in a much smaller community, the kind of place where it is hard to fit in being a single guy who doesn’t know anyone and doesn’t have a family of his own. But the more sustainable kind of places where adult singles tend to congregate also would be difficult places for me to fit in (not to mention farther from work). Those neighborhoods tend to attract noisy people who are looking for night life and places to party. Believe me, I’m not trying here to have a sense of superiority over people in small towns or people in urban neighborhoods with night life. There are things I love about small towns, and there are things I love about vibrant new urban areas, and some of my favorite people live in each of those kinds of places. I just don’t think either kind of place is going to suit me any better than the suburbs, especially considering the specifics of where I am right now.
There are things I can do, though. I asked at the beginning of the year if any coworkers commute from the same direction that I’m coming from; there were only two, and both of them have different enough schedules to make a carpool impractical. Maybe next year, now that I’m settled, if no new people coming from my direction join the staff at my school, I can even ask if anyone from the nearby high school or any of the nearby elementary schools commutes from my direction. And when it comes time to replace this car, I’m definitely going to look into hybrids and other fuel-efficient options. But for now, I’m doing the best I can. And while it is important to be aware of the greater consequences of my actions and my lifestyle, worrying about it too much just makes me sad and frustrated.