If I had to choose 1 word to describe the state of things at this point in 2022, it would be “Desperation.”

This one significant thing seems to be the common thread stringing us all together despite ourselves. People are desperate for a sense of safety, for acceptance, for an end to the constant turmoil, day after day, night after night, we’re bombarded as if intentionally to lower the general vibration of humankind.

But it isn’t just the humans….

Tiny, black, obnoxious little ants, averse to bait traps, weave in and out of the electronics on my desk as I type these words. One or two bold enough to crawl up my arm, another couple scurry across my field of vision, begging to be snuffed out. I gladly oblige. But there’s still this aching feeling of guilt and kinship that I just can’t seem to shake…

A few days ago, desperation manifested itself as a severely injured vulture, standing in my front yard, panting from the heat, the jagged bones from its wing-top detached from its body. When I stepped out on my porch that day, I swore I was hallucinating. At first, it looked like it was holding a gun. My heart shattered as I wondered if there was anything at all I could possibly do to help it, and whether anyone else on the planet would feel as deeply as I did for its suffering. After all, the police officer they sent out to investigate didn’t bat an eye when he told me we’d need to “let nature take its course,” before turning and leaving me in my yard, quaking in my ill-equipped frustration.

I don’t, however, harbor the same empathy for the ants in my kitchen right now. A different breed than the bastards in my office. Much fatter and clearly visible, they taunt me, teetering across the cavern that is the crack between the stove and the counter top. Who the hell do they think they are? They didn’t pay for the bread crumbs I missed, hiding beneath the toaster. What gives them the right? But I also know they don’t care about any of that….because they’re desperate.

Even the trees are showing us their desperation, achingly eager to connect with us, for the obvious fact that they hurt, too, and they can’t survive “us” without our intervention. I don’t think for a second they give a shit about being TikTok famous….

I used to talk to the tree outside my window during desperate moments. Moments when I was feeling afraid or anxious. Never once did I notice it leaning toward me. These days they risk their secrets to reach out.

All of this desperation can’t be a coincidence….Maybe if we find acceptance, things will get easier? Maybe if we stop trying so hard to be heard, to feel safe, to have control—and simply believe that we already have those things—everything will just magically turn itself around? Then again, maybe not…

Tonight I leave the kitchen ants to take the bait back to their creepy little lair, in the hopes my desperate attempt teaches them some sort of lesson. But deep down I know it won’t…because they’re just as desperate as everyone and everything else on this planet right now.