I've had Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start the Fire" stuck in my head for about a week now. Especially the chorus where it goes: "We didn't start the fire. It was always burning, since the world's been turning. We didn't start the fire. No, we didn't light it, but we tried to fight it." It's the last line that gets me. The fact that it’s in the past tense. What a downer. In light of all the crap that's going on in the world and the non-stop doomsday scrolling that I’m doing, my days feel like they are shrouded in worry and angst (it didn't help that my whole family had corona and our son now has chicken pox, but that’s neither here nor there).
I'm not entirely sure what the remedy is for my current malaise, but a text from C.S. Lewis seems somewhat on point (although I am not really a very religious man): "If we are all going to be destroyed by an atomic bomb, let that bomb when it comes find us doing sensible and human things—praying, working, teaching, reading, listening to music, bathing the children, playing tennis, chatting to our friends over a pint and a game of darts—not huddled together like frightened sheep and thinking about bombs. They may break our bodies (a microbe can do that) but they need not dominate our minds."
So even though it is taking me a bit more time and effort to muster the motivation to write something for work (and to try and convince myself that it may actually contribute to something), here is my attempt at doing something sensible and human, even if it is just writing a silly blog about a new proposed law that may (or may not) make the world a slightly better place.