As any fan of the normie-turned-outlandish comedy Community will know, the “Darkest Timeline” is a reference to the show’s Remedial Chaos Theory episode, which expanded on an idea from the original Star Trek series, about an alternate timeline where all the main characters were evil versions of their usual selves.
It’s hard not to feel like we are in our own version of the Darkest Timeline, as we find ourselves mired down in an unnecessary war in the Middle East, facing rising prices at home, beset by AI and data centers foisted upon us by our corporate masters, assaulted daily by the actions of a deeply unserious man, and watching an activist Supreme Court systematically dismantle everything that progressives built over the last ninety years. We feel powerless against the evil forces arrayed against us.
I feel it on a personal level too. These last three months have been their own special kind of Darkness for Mark and I, as I took on a new temporary job managing Nebula Con while simultaneously running the Sacramento Book Festival, keeping our own business afloat, and moving from one house to another – a combination I wouldn’t wish on my own worst enemy.
The damage of all these things is cumulative. There are days, like this morning, when I just don’t want to get out of bed.
And yet.
Somehow. we do get up every morning to face the day. And by some strange alchemy, out of the heaping piles of shit served to us with unrelenting glee, there are little bits of beauty and light that find their way up through that noxious manure.
Things like an unexpected, kind, encouraging word from a friend who is buried under their own pile of awful, who nevertheless reaches out to offer you support when you need it most.
Or a heart-healing evening with friends over a great meal, with a waiter who makes us laugh and brings a smile to our faces.
A few stolen moments to write, to create my own small oasis of beauty and order and what could be…
And the unexpected burst of sunshine from a cloudy sky just outside my window, on a day when I only expected rain.
As authors, we are tuned to magnify only the worst things people say about us – one bad review outweighs a hundred good ones. An agent rejection has far more heft than the publisher that accepted our book last month. And our latest work in progress serves only to confirm what a terrible, derivative, really no good writer we are.
And as humans, we’re no different. Social media has trained us to become doom monkeys, constantly scrolling to see how much worse things can get.
There’s a kind of breathless anticipation to it, isn’t there? What latest outrage can you share with your friends, to fire up their anger? What yesterday unthinkable thing has become not only thinkable, but one more sad piece of our lives today?
We’ve been rewired for pain, and we’ve let it happen.
What if it could be different?
Just outside my window, a new house is going up across the street. And while I’m not happy about my lost view of the distant hills, there’s a kind of joy in watching its progress. Each day, rain or shine, the construction workers are out there, summoning a little more order out of chaos. Literally building up instead of tearing down.
This is the magic we have forgotten. When you build a house, when you create a book festival, when you reach out to lift the spirits of a friend in need, you’re rejecting doom scrolling in favor of something far better. You are building up, supporting, and laying the groundwork for something wondrous and new.
I remind myself, things always swing back. Right now we feel like we’re in the darkest timeline, but if you step back and look for the signs, you can see the light seeping through.
The great Leonard Cohen penned these words in the song Anthem in 1992:
Ring the bells that still can ring
Forget your perfect offering
There is a crack, a crack in everything
That’s how the light gets in
We are, all of us, broken right now. But that’s ok. We’ll ring the bells we can.
I can see the light shining through you, and it is glorious.