Interesting Times
Curses don't keep us from living our lives.
This morning, I’m sitting in a Carl’s Jr, wearing a corduroy jacket I’ve owned for 25 years and listening to ELO’s Living Thing.
Life was so great in the 70s and 80s. At least it was simpler to a man in his 20's. The weight of the preceding 60 years wasn't really resting on my shoulders then.
If it wasn't simpler, I sure as hell was.
25 years ago, I was in school working on an art degree. I was living in Dallas and was commuting to class on my way to pick up Ng who had done the 3rd shift at Children’s Hospital.
As I drove over the flyover that connected southbound I-35 and northbound I-75, the radio in my 1989 Isuzu pickup stopped playing Drops of Jupiter (Train) and announced a plane had struck one of the towers.
There are not many moments when you realize you world has changed, but this was one of them (Diana’s death and the suspension of the NBA at the outset of COVID are a couple of others). I knew in the moment we were seeing a ground shift.
I picked up my wife from work and we discussed the weight of it. Classes were suspended and we sat in the student center for two hours with the rest of the world watching the horror in real time.
This was a new world. And not a great one.
As a student of the Bible, I’d been watching for the prophesied end of the world for a majority of my life at this point.
9/11 was the first event in my life that felt like it could meet the standards of what the end of the world would look like.
It was terrifying.
Of course, you know this dear reader. You have your own paralyzing experience.
I don’t have to tell you.
Then, strangely, life started again. We were suddenly taking our shoes off. The government was sending our children to war. Prices were going up. Houses of worship filled to the brim (no atheists in the foxhole and all). We all collectively waited for the next devastating foot to fall.
But it never did. Not really.
Instead, it sort of it never stopped:
2003 — The Bam earthquake in Iran 2003 — The Cedar Fire in California
2004 — Hurricane Jeanne in Haiti 2004 — The Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami
2005 — The Kashmir earthquake 2005 — Hurricane Katrina and the flooding of New Orleans
2006 — The Yogyakarta earthquake in Indonesia
2007 — Cyclone Sidr in Bangladesh
2008 — Cyclone Nargis in Myanmar 2008 — The Sichuan earthquake in China
2009 — The Black Saturday bushfires in Australia
2010 — The Haiti earthquake 2010 — The Chile earthquake and tsunami 2010 — The Deepwater Horizon explosion and Gulf oil spill
2011 — The Christchurch earthquake 2011 — The Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami 2011 — The Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster
2012 — Hurricane Sandy
2013 — The Rana Plaza collapse in Bangladesh 2013 — Typhoon Haiyan in the Philippines
2015 — The Nepal earthquake 2015 — The Tianjin port explosions in China
2016 — The Fort McMurray wildfire in Canada
2017 — The Portugal wildfires 2017 — The Northern California firestorm 2017 — Hurricanes Harvey, Irma and Maria
2018 — The Sulawesi earthquake, tsunami and liquefaction 2018 — The Camp Fire and the destruction of Paradise, California
2019 — Cyclone Idai in southeastern Africa 2019 — The Brumadinho dam collapse in Brazil
2019–2020 — Australia’s Black Summer bushfires
2020 — The California wildfire season 2020 — The Beirut port explosion
2021 — The Texas winter storm and power-grid failure 2021 — The Western European floods 2021 — The Mediterranean wildfires
2022 — The Tonga volcanic eruption and tsunami 2022 — The Pakistan floods
2023 — The Turkey–Syria earthquakes 2023 — The Canadian wildfire season 2023 — The Lahaina wildfire on Maui 2023 — The Morocco earthquake 2023 — Storm Daniel, the failed dams and the destruction of Derna, Libya
2024 — The Rio Grande do Sul floods in Brazil 2024 — The Valencia floods in Spain 2024 — Hurricane Helene
2025 — The Los Angeles wildfires 2025 — The Myanmar earthquake
Jeeez... what a list. I recall most of these, but never looked at them all together at once. Wow.
These events claimed more than a million lives. Which is paltry when you consider that wars and armed conflicts took more than 15m during the same period.
And honestly, the dead are probably the lucky ones. Hundreds of millions have been left behind suffering debilitating physical and mental impacts.
Living On
Life definitely stopped that day 25 years ago. Then it changed direction. Eventually, it began to look the same. But it never quite felt normal again—if it ever had.
New things became old. Old things went away entirely.
Air travel won't ever be what it was prior. In fact, the increasingly widespread lawless attitude of people makes it more miserable every year. Unless you can fly business or first, it's like chattel in the hold.
Personally, I hate flying. Not the physical act, but the ingress and egress from the border of the airport is just a big fat no thanks.
Not to mention the eye-watering cost.
I imagine if I lived closer to the northeast, it would be a much bigger deal. Out here in the desert, it's little more than an 'oh, yeah, I remember that' kind of day.
For certain, one day that list above will be undone and the earth will be the kind of home we were made for. And it for us.
Until then, continue to hug those you love the most. Keep your eyes up and on the future.
One day, we'll get there. Until then, all any of this is just a very, very interesting story.
I look forward to one day telling you mine and listening as you tell yours.