Mike, thank you for your excellent essay. You always have insightful musings about the absurdist forces that guide our lives today.

Is lethargy a symptom of depression? Perhaps it is. And if the lack of energy and the general unwillingness (at the consumer level) to push back against the absurdities of hyper-capitalism and the destruction of the Earth’s biosphere is an indication of societal depression (mentally) then perhaps we are actually witnessing a kind of suicidal march into oblivion.

Canada is on fire which sends death smoke to New York. What should people do? Wear a mask, and buy a good one. Soon there will be designer masks for the fashionable capitalist. Fight your lethargy with more hyper-consumption!

And so on as a lethargic response for all the other unnatural but natural disasters that will continue to define the end-stage of our unsustainable experiment with continuous growth through the harvesting of dense energy from coal, oil, methane, and natural gas.

A robust response (that is, not a lethargic response) to our unsustainable situation that would entail de-growth globally, consuming less individually, and organizing communities for local governance, is radical when placed within the overall lethargic system of our present mindset.