One of the pieces of writing I’ve found most valuable over the past two years is C.S. Lewis’ “On Living in an Atomic Age”
In one way we think a great deal too much of the atomic bomb. “How are we to live in an atomic age?” I am tempted to reply: “Why, as you would have lived in the sixteenth century when the plague visited London almost every year, or as you would have lived in a Viking age when raiders from Scandinavia might land and cut your throat any night; or indeed, as you are already living in an age of cancer, an age of syphilis, an age of paralysis, an age of air raids, an age of railway accidents, an age of motor accidents.”
In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways. We had, indeed, one very great advantage over our ancestors—anesthetics; but we have that still. It is perfectly ridiculous to go about whimpering and drawing long faces because the scientists have added one more chance of painful and premature death to a world which already bristled with such chances and in which death itself was not a chance at all, but a certainty.
This is the first point to be made: and the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. 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.
— “On Living in an Atomic Age” (1948) in Present Concerns: Journalistic Essays
In particular, this phase hits home:
“In other words, do not let us begin by exaggerating the novelty of our situation. Believe me, dear sir or madam, you and all whom you love were already sentenced to death before the atomic bomb was invented: and quite a high percentage of us were going to die in unpleasant ways.“
It does feel like it is becoming more difficult to be optimistic about the future, but then I think what it must felt like to have faith that the dumb politicians of the day weren’t going to unleash nuclear war on the world. Or how it must have felt to live through the world wars and see your friends, brothers, fathers, and neighbours go off to Europe and never come back.
It is valuable to think about what the future might hold but it is even more critical to not dwell on a negative future or let the possibility of it destroy your day today.
“…the first action to be taken is to pull ourselves together. 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.”
The possible dystopian future we imagine does not exist. Some aspects of it may come to pass, but when you spend your time today living in that world you are working to create it not to avoid it. The most important thing you can do is resist the temptation to despair or believe it is all outside your control. Instead, return to the human things, make friends, enjoy time with your children, start a garden and grow some plants. Live today like billions of people have done before you, knowing that bad things will come to pass, but we still have today.
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