Imagine being the soft sack of shit born into an era of peace, prosperity, and steady progress - life a tropical beach unheard of since the population bottleneck that had us all spending our days with nothing to do but eat shellfish and berries, fuck, and make art.
I was informed that I am an "elder millennial", one of those who developed in the world of outside til the streetlights come on and 72 hour wars of liberation from the forces of evil. Born just on the cusp of the real takeoff of the exponential curve of technological disruption, in the time that good stewardship of the earth was still something that was conceivable, in the days when established politics were thought to be grinding towards their ultimate promise.
Imagine being one of those soft pieces of shit wholly unprepared for the morning black waves rolled in, and the ghostlights appeared on the dusk horizon as an omen. Imagine only being able to deny the rotten skeletons and sea monsters that crawl out of the surf, instead of coping with laughter as the ten ton crab demon clips you off at the knees.
Imagine insisting, even as the venom blinds you and rots your guts out of your bleeding asshole, that the tribe stand rank and file with rocks and spears to ward off the steel serpents - that defending the tidal caves is the only way forward, that building on warded piers is heresy.
The world is changing, friends, and those of us who want to cope have to choose whether to abandon the old world or perish with it.
I'll take my chances on the piers, and I'll do what I have to do to afford the concrete.