Extinction on My Mind:
Transformative surrender
Just because there’s nothing we can do to change the course we’re on doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do
By Randi Hacker
August 26, 2025
My old friend Chrissy D. told me you must never start the first paragraph of a letter with “I.” This had a profound effect on me. Not only do I never start a letter or an email or pretty much any communication with “I,” I’ve also extended it to anything I write, even these essays. I back into things just to be sure I’m not starting with myself.
Which I have done here, because what I really want to start with is this: I’m feeling nonplussed over what is happening in the human extinction space, nonplussed because… Why?
But I know why. And so do you. It’s that modern human failure to differentiate what matters from what makes money. And by “modern,” I mean humans who came after the invention of money and, later, economics.
At the same time, I’m also feeling somewhat smug because it appears that I’m right: The human species is headed for extinction by its own hand. I know I’m not the only one who thinks that. Walt Kelly knew it back in 1971 when he wrote this:
Pogo comic strip – Image: © Walt Kelly
Boy howdy.
Here’s a sampling of evidentiary support*:
- The EPA has rescinded the finding that greenhouse gas emissions are harmful to health.
- At least one American mining company cannot wait to start mining the ocean floor.
- The Department of Energy has selected eleven projects for a new nuclear reactor program.
- In Virginia, the governor is boosting AI to fill jobs, hoping to build the biggest, most powerful data center in his state.
- More people are flying more places than ever, and reduced-emission jet fuel is lagging behind, if it exists at all.
- Donald J. Trump is still in the White House, and he’s “very good at ballrooms.”
And that’s just America.
Across the ocean, Sweden is backing out of its environmental commitments, as are other EU countries; Britain’s water is dangerously contaminated with sewage; and international talks addressing all that plastic have ground to a halt.
Knowing what we know and continuing to do what we’re doing – blowing up cars for entertainment value; flying to destination weddings in Greece; flushing drugs down the toilet; building a Disney World in Abu Dhabi… Well, I’ll stop there. You get the idea – it’s a special form of delusion. It might even be a disorder. ROD, Reality Opposition Disorder. Once it gets into the DSM, it will be available on both Hims and Hers. Kristen Bell will be the spokesperson.
And here’s the good news: We’re powerless to stop it.
My therapist asked me why I thought it was good news. Surrender, I told her. There’s freedom in it. It’s transformative because it makes you understand that just because there’s nothing we can do to change the course we’re on as a whole — a course whose momentum likely began when the ancestral hunters went out and wiped out the mammoths, even though you just know that there was someone in the cave, a woman probably, who was saying, “Guys! We’re wiping out the mammoths. Don’t you think it’s time we strategize?”— doesn’t mean there’s nothing we can do. We can still live lives that inflict as little harm as the life of a 21st-century human can; we can still align our actions with the values that we believe are of the highest plane; we can still teach our children to be gentle to our only home planet, as long as we still live on it.
We can still live lives that inflict as little harm as the life of a 21st-century human can; we can still align our actions with the values that we believe are of the highest plane; we can still teach our children to be gentle to our only home planet, as long as we still live on it.
In my novella, the main character, Ellie, hears from her sister about just this.
A text.
It’s from Thithter Oh Thithter.
What their mother could never achieve between Ellie and her sister in all the years that they were growing up — not with tears, not with threats, not with pleas — Donald Trump and his supporters have succeeded in doing: They have brought the two sisters together and given them just the perfect Venn overlap they need to establish a mutually respectful and rewarding, Republican-bashing textual relationship.
Ellie’s sister is on board with human extinction, too, but she would prefer to see us all wiped out by an asteroid. She’s fond of texting “Come on, asteroid!” followed by an asteroid emoji. Ellie has an aversion to using emoji. They make her think about the decline of the written language, which, now that extinction is at hand, she really shouldn’t even be bothered by anymore, and yet she still is.
And she has an aversion to the whole asteroid scenario, too. Because the last thing Ellie wants to hear in the afterworld, if there is one, is the competitive whining of asteroid victims or the blustering of asteroid vindicators saying, “See? It didn’t matter what we did. Earth was going to be hit by an asteroid anyway.”
Ellie thinks that our path to extinction has to be long enough for us to really internalize it; long enough for us to know, inescapably, that we are responsible for it; long enough for it to be the topic of PhD dissertations at top research universities; long enough for books to be published on the impact it is having on our sex lives; long enough for celebrities to share their thoughts on extinction, their coping mechanisms, their comfort recipes in the pages of People.
“We have to know that we’re responsible,” Ellie has told Thithter Oh Thithter. “Our spiritual growth as creatures of the universe depends on it.”
Ellie’s sister sees Ellie’s point, but she’s still rooting for the asteroid.
Today Thithter Oh Thithter’s text says:
“I think a lot about the practices I’ve incorporated over a lifetime with the planet in mind. I’m now rethinking the decisions I’ve taken for granted for so long (like not being wasteful and recycling). I now also see that if I curtail my vigilance, I’m possibly speeding up our demise, which I’m, ideally, not against.
So far, I almost always still opt to save the planet (although it could be argued that the faster humans die, the faster the planet will be saved) because I want to die knowing I was only a small part of the problem.
Do you ever consider this?”
Ellie types, “Yes.”
‘I have found that a surrender to reality has also been a surrender to an enlightened awareness of the sensory and aesthetic variety of this planet that we have had the great good fortune to live on…’
I have found that a surrender to reality has also been a surrender to an enlightened awareness of the sensory and aesthetic variety of this planet that we have had the great good fortune to live on, one where we can find pleasure in a monarch caterpillar in all its yellow-and-black fatness eating the leaves of the milkweed plant we put in our garden just for it; one where we can stare in fascination at the creepiness of a bagworm cocoon making its jerky way down the sidewalk; one where we can throw open the back door to the grandeur of a prairie thunderstorm and inhale the scent of petrichor through the screen. Every day that we are still here is a beautiful day on earth.**
* If you’re like me, you are carefully curating your news upload. So no links. If you want to read more, there’s always Google.
** Chrissy D. didn’t say anything about starting the final paragraph of a letter with “I.”
Disclaimer: The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of WestmountMag.ca or its publishers.
Feature image: Arunodhai V
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Randi Hacker has been a writer and editor since the 20th century, and she’s been writing about the environment for more than thirty years, mostly to empower young people to take agency in their future. Satirical essays written with a partner appeared in the New York Times Book Review, Punch and Spy, among other publications. Her YA novel, Life As I Knew It, (Simon & Schuster) was named one of the Books for the Teen Age by the NY Public Library, and her TV show, Windy Acres, written with Jay Craven, was nominated for a New England Emmy for Writing. She just retired from her position as the resolutions copy editor for the State of Vermont, a job that has forever damaged her relationship with the comma. randihacker.com
Your belief is shared by many and reflects the one light in a cosmos of darkness.
Realism is all to often confused with pessimissm, and by continuing to lead by
example, or write the truth as you see it, you provoke thoughtfull discussion on
human evolution, individual responsibility .
A single light is better than walking in the darkness (Dalai Lama, not verbatim).
Keep the candle burning
I know I am not going to save the world from consequences of human activity that dates at least as far back as the industrial revolution (some would say with the advent of agriculture and the growth of cities), but this does not stop me from keeping my own carbon footprint as light as possible, nor does it stop me from fighting to protect our environment one forest wetland and one riverine system at a time.
And so, I achieve a measure of peace within myself, and when I am distressed, I remind myself that nature will continue to evolve and will even find a way to incorporte or transform the poisons we are continually pumping into her.
Thank-you for your encouragement.