Hello, and welcome back to another break in our narrative. I hope you’ve been holding up well, not so good stuff happening in the world right now notwithstanding. Usually, I’d probably wait a little longer for an intermission (at least while finishing the next chapter, certainly), and I actually had a completely different topic in mind for the third installment (let’s put that aside for now). However, this one came to me while things are still fresh in my memory. Plus, what an opportunity to talk shit and art at the same time!

In many ways, this is a direct sequel to the previous (full) intermission. But, while then we talked of ivory towers, today I’d like to focus on a comparatively different, much more grounded state of being: inhabiting a decaying world.

Like many of you reading this, I spent the 5th in restrained dread; I welcomed Wednesday, just after midnight (when it became apparent who won), with little more than defeatist anger.

By that point in the night, I was exhausted – both emotionally, from the news coverage, and mentally, from having been editing my legal research and writing memo the entire day before – so I allowed myself a trip to a bar with some colleagues from law school. It was a strange setup: the place didn’t exactly give off sports bar (and served speakeasy-priced cocktails) yet also had three screens active at all times. On one – the most prominent screen – they were showing American Football (I’m sorry, I’m not calling it just “Football”). Election day or not, some college teams had a game lined up; who was the American public to deny them that? On the one behind me, some trashy movie with Stallone – one of those direct to DVD stuff you’d see many starts of the 80s and 90s doing these days. And finally, on the third screen, juuuuust in the corner of the bar – but still clearly visible – they were showing election coverage. As I got my first (but far, far from the last) drink of the night, Trump was delivering his victory speech.

In retrospect, I realise that this must be what a decaying world feels like: the worst news about the future of the country – and, let’s be real, the rest of the world – squashed between sports and a movie nobody cares about. An impending catastrophe sandwiched between hollow culture and captivating-yet-poorly-timed entertainment. Fascism at everyone’s doorstep, but all the gravitas of its no longer impending rise trivialised into the sound of a football cheer.

This isn’t meant to be an op-ed, so I’ll refrain from further political analysis. But I do want to say that the irony of it all doesn’t evade me, in that this is the second time something like that happens shortly after I immigrate. Just shy of two years after I moved to Britain, the country has narrowly voted for Brexit (less than five months later, Trump was first elected president). Back then, there was plenty of shock, mixed with some naive levity – “sure, this is bad, but we have plenty of ways to mitigate the worst of it” – one that I attribute at least in small part to my own youth. Today’s situation (especially after the trifecta of legislature also going to the Republicans) feels like an eulogy for any hopes that things would ever be “normal” again, even if those hopes were misplaced in the first place.

In conversations with friends, especially in the last few years, I often remarked that I felt like we have maybe a decade left of things going “okay,” until, inevitably, we would be tipped into the point of no return where everything would get so much worse before it gets better. With the way things are now, I believe that timeline has shifted, at best, to half a decade. When history looks back on the 2020s, it will look on it as a decade of blight and failed opportunities, a decade of reactionary and authoritarian right regaining legitimacy and undermining progress, much like we look back on the 1970s and to an extent 1930s today. And it will not be kind to any one of us.

I am not here today to tell you what to do in the face of these troubling developments, both because, I’m sure, each would have a different way to process these things and because I genuinely do not know what the best advice I could give is. A feel-good platitude or any notion of optimism would be terribly misplaced; a genuine answer to “what is to be done” takes time to formulate. But, insofar as coping with this decaying world goes, I do believe that the answer, one way or the other, lies in the community of people most immediately surrounding us. As I keep mentioning at any conceivable opportunity, Decembrism was born out of turmoil of my teenage years abroad; now, it evolves through turmoil of my mid-twenties, in the face of growing uncertainty, worsening of politics, and shaky legal securities. Throughout it all, the one reliable constant remain my friends, my family, and the sporadic kindness of strangers. The characters of Decembrism, in one way or another, are a testament to all of those people, making it ultimately – beyond the routine, the various dystopian elements, and the wider issues of the world, imagined or real – a story of connection, hard as it may be to maintain, navigate, and keep in the face of impending doom.

There have been many moments in my life where I’ve retreated into the story to work through my feelings and relationships with people. Many times, it was out of frustration and desires to shut myself away, much like my main character had, to simply not deal with any of it and only focus on the fact that everything is fucked. And it’s hard not to see the appeal; in the face of all that’s transpired – and undoubtedly, everything that is yet to come – it’s often the tempting option. Yet every time I would do so, perhaps through attempts to ensure that at least my own characters could have some clarity, I would always arrive at the same conclusion: my characters can’t cope alone; neither can I.

Much of this may seem obvious (by God, I hope it is?), but in my extensive experience, I have found the option of retreating into self impossibly tempting—especially when the going gets tough in the wider world, and certain doom becomes inescapable. I guess, as my one point/appeal, if there was one to be gleamed out of this intermission, I only ask you to not grow complacent, and be there for others just as others are there for you, even if there is nothing more to be done.

Whether or not we succeed in reversing the decay is going to be a question that will only be answered in time. Whether we – and by “we” I mean anyone and everyone – can do so alone, well, I think the answer is much more apparent.

No updates on the next chapter as of now. Until then, join a union, or a local organisation, or take up the banner of change yourself, and stay safe.

Talk soon, whether under better or worse circumstances,
– Daniel