REFER TO GREY: Contemplations by Robert Greigos © 2007-2024

Last year we had snow. This year we do not.

“Oh, don’t worry. It’s just the weather. Weather changes.”

Ah, but the trend. The trend is not comforting. Winters are warmer. Summers are hotter. There are more droughts and fires, more insect pests and new diseases. This is not comforting. We are not prepared for this.

So, is the answer to ban immigrants? Set up machine gun nests at the border? Spray them with chemicals as if they were invading insects?

How sad, the prevalence of magical thinking in the US today.

We think of ourselves as an educated, civilized society. But we are not. We are definitely not. We are ignorant, stupid, angry, and afraid. We do not want our precious roses to die, of heat or of cold, or of drought, or from invading pests. We feel we must do something. We must. We must do something before it is too late.

And what do we choose to do? Strike out at others who are also trying to adjust to disruptive change? Why, of course. It must be their fault. It must be. Get rid of them and everything will be all right again. It will.

But that is magical thinking, a faulty feeble ignorant attempt at rational thought. Two things occurring together in time and space does not mean they are causally connected. And that is the fault of magical thinking, the fatal fault, the self-destructive flaw. It is the fault that will destroy the US. It is the flaw that will drive most of humanity into extinction upon this earth.

Why are immigrants moving? Why are insects and animals migrating? Why are trees dying? Why are water tables dropping? Why are the arctic ice caps melting? Why is the ocean rising and becoming more acidic?

Point your many guns at any one of those things and you will not halt the trend. Those things are the symptoms, not the cause. Magical thinking does not address the cause. But, if we did address the cause, the actual cause, then maybe, just maybe the trend will halt.

For more than 200 years, the finest thinkers amongst us have tried diligently to go beyond the ignorance of magical thinking and do things that actually do make a difference. But now, today, with this electorate, with this Congress, with this Administration, we are seeing the resurgence of faulty, feeble, ignorant, and self-destructive magical thinking.

Something must be done. Something. Magical thinking will not save us from our fears, our anger, or our ignorance.

Please, please turn to your neighbors, fellow workers, citizens of this floundering country and try to move past the fallacy of magical thinking. Magical thinking will not save us.