History is a nightmare from which I am trying to awake. So wrote James Joyce in his novel Ulysses in 1922. The main character, Stephen Dedalus, is referring to the painful burden of Irland’s oppressed pass. Again, circa 1922. That burden alludes to the nationalism, religion and national dogma and its oppressive influences which created Joyce’s impetus for writing his now legendary novel. Joyce, who became an expat, watched from afar as his homeland then became embroiled in a bloody civil war (is there any other kind of civil war?). He died on January 13, 1941, in Zurich, Switzerland. Instead of living to awaken to a peaceful, refreshing sense of positive change in Ireland, his final years found him having to flee another nighmarish reality: World War Two. Joyce left Ireland for France in 1920 and remained there until the Nazis invaded that country in 1940.

One might think Joyce also authored the novel Nightmare Alley, but that state of slumbering discord was penned by William Lindsay Gresham in 1946. His nightmare was about a second-rate traveling carnival con man and the greed, guilt and self-destruction that characterized such a person. Con man? Greed? Guilt? Self-destruction? Sure, why not?, after all both Ulysses and Nightmare Alley are found in the fiction sections of a library, as each bespeaks the underbelly of society, where dark and dangerous elements of the human race seemingly, relentlessly reside in an all too non-fiction world.

Here, in the USA, 2026, it would not be an exaggeration to assume that a very significant number of its 342.9 million population are awaiting an awakening from another festering, infected case of humanity’s dark underbelly again repeating its presence. This current incarnation of sleep disrupting developments underminds a preferred reality of, at best, being able to excise the source of the rot, or at the least, be able to control and counteract its toxicity without resorting to yet another bloody civil war.

However, unlike what Joyce and Gresham saw as the source of their voicing alarm about what met their waking consciousness, our contemporary concerns are multi-layered and global. For any critical-thinking, rational person simply seeking a basic sense of safety, security and an ability to live life without having to cheat, steal, lie or kill to satisfy a thirst for superiority and control, such a mindset is becoming a virtually quaint concept.

Here in the USA, or in any number of places around the planet, peace, love and understanding is more a pipe dream than ever, a desired reality that is diminished anew with every passing day. Racism, autoritarianism, oppression, persecution here and there. Some wealthy outposts are seemingly less subject to be caught up in its dystopic displays, but no one, anywhere, of any inherent, financial or racial advantage is safe from all of the forces that confront humanity-at-large right now. In fact, even the small number of individuals who are creating local, national and global anxieties and angst are themselves in danger. Not that these nefarious characters appear to be concerned, but there are a few potentially deadly realities that no amount of money, influence or predatory power can survive

These three very real and present dangers are, right now: the well documented deterioration of planet Earth due to our addiction to fossil fuels, deforestation, polluting our oceans, lakes, rivers and streams and the like; the long-standing threat of global, thermonuclear war; the rapid rise of artificial intelligence. Which of these three threats is most likely to take down our deeply flawed species known as Homo Sapien?

Well, a potential nuclear holocaust has been on the table since that Atomic Genie became a terror of science starting in 1945, when it was allowed to flex its massive, radioactive muscle, killing hundreds of thousands of mostly Japanese civilians in the span of three days. And that Atomic Genie seemingly cannot be put back in its Atomic Lantern.

More benevolent, but alarming a science, has documented the damage already having been done to our planet. Weather events in just the last decade or so have become more and more historically extreme and deadly. But science, in too many parts of the world, does not appear to be taken seriously, in spite of irrefutable evidence that the future of all humanity is–again–in its crosshairs.

Lasty, and most recently, there is what used to be the stuff of science fiction, namely the creation of A.I. From Arthur C. Clarke to Philip K. Dick to 2001, a Space Odyssey to Terminator 1, to The Matrix and now onto Anthropic to Open A.I. and everyday life, A.I. has now possibly already been allowed to become HAL 9000, or Cyberdyne Systems, or ready to “harvest” humans as as sources for battery energy, at best, or simply decide, as in most of those classic fictional red flag A.I narratives, become self aware and self-sufficient. And decide–perhaps wisely?–that the human race no longer serves any purpose.

Sure, all of the above is the stuff of nightmares. It is getting late, but, it is not too late to enact a vitally necessary course correction. The underbelly of humanity has created all of the dangers that confront one and all, the good, the bad and ugly alike. The choice, I would like to think, is still ours to make. That is, if there are enough of us with our eyes wide open, our patience about having run out, and willing to say ENOUGH ALREADY to the minority that, as always, dares the oppositional majority to do anything about it.

As the movie Chinatown showed in its neo-noir tale of greed, corruption, and power being a deadly drug for some, when the dectective confronts the mastermind behind the evils that he perpetuates in this tale and asks him: What is you want that you cannot already afford ten times over? The anwser he is given: The future Mr.Gittes, the future.

That mentality seems to be a plausible explanation for every despot who ever lived. In my book, the future is now. And the many, not just the few, can control it, if only the many amongst the many awaken from their likely uneasy slumber and embrace ENOUGH ALREADY–already!