The Chernobyl Wolves Are So Us

With vibes this radioactive, one must adapt.

Hi friends!

Allegedly it’s Wednesday, but that doesn’t seem real. How we all doing out here on the brink? Finding some brief, if uncertain joy amidst the darkness?

The vibes over here recently took a very (off-brand) Dickensian turn when the “historic” LA rainstorm made quick work of my apartment’s 100 year-old ceiling, invited in the dampness, and afflicted me with a lingering consumption.

Upon alerting my landlord, a man with a devilish beard appeared, said he can’t make any real repairs until everything dries out, opened both the ceiling and the wall to reveal the innards of the charming, janky structure I call home (obscene), and told me there was a small chance his work would hold through this week’s return of the rain.

Against the odds, it did! Now the sunshine is back and I am no longer coughing into a handkerchief.

The good news we need, because save for a stunt queen pregnant stingray and a special appearance by foremother of Unhingement, the OnlyFans vixen formerly known as Rachel Dolezal, it has all been … so fucked. I definitely need a new vocation because I can’t look at social media anymore, it’s too devastating and too distracting and that combination delights in seeding madness. 

A couple of weeks ago I came across this story about research coming out of the Chernobyl Exclusion Zone, the infamous area humans were forced to abandon in the ‘80s after the worst nuclear disaster in history. Still mostly devoid of humans and our endless misbehavior, it has become a haven for wildlife, specifically a group of wolves who are thriving in spite of their radioactive environment. Turns out the resilient wolves of Chernobyl have evolved genetic protections from cancer.

Hearing about the sweet, mutant wolves of Chernobyl made me think of another group of innocent mammals subjected to an unrelentingly toxic environment against their will — us — and the many ways we’ve been forced to adapt in a never-ending cycle of concentric strides towards resiliency.

inside you there are two wolves, fingers crossed only one is an asshole.

From my observations, denial seems to be the most popular adaptation, but since you’re reading my Unhingement-themed newsletter, I’m going to assume that’s not where your head is at either. I’m so envious of the people who now inhabit a bizarro reality of their own creation, some of us need hallucinogenic drugs for that.

There’s the post-pandemic, push-pull mutation of overbooking yourself within an inch of your life (avoidance) vs. going full recluse (avoidance, but different) because though we are now years out from the years inside, balance has not yet been restored in one’s ability to properly plan a life, at least not for me. Also, everyone’s insane now which is great fun until it’s not.

A solid group of people on TikTok, mostly Gen Z, have chosen lockdown nostalgia as a way to cope. I guess if you were like 17 in 2020 riding your bike down an empty street, untouched by the death of it all, and not dissociating on a work Zoom six feet from the sourdough starter you named Janice (or trying to homeschool young children) then there is impetus to canonize the era.

The next category is something I call “cults, causes, and conspiracies” which is a wide-ranging umbrella term for everyone who has chosen to cover themselves in the warm blanket of groupthink. This option seems so nice and comforting, knowing you have somewhere to belong and someone or something to throw your weight behind in this confusing, splintered world. This adaptation is sadly unavailable to me as I think everything is bullshit and can’t start my own cult because I finally realized at the end of last year that girlbossing just burns me out. Oh well!

Of course, the wolves of Chernobyl have had almost four decades to become the kind of resilient mutants that inspire. We are still in our early days — less than a decade into the Age of Unhingement™️ — but getting exponentially closer to peak crazy, any day now … we hope?

The one mutation that has already permeated my DNA (you’re welcome, future generations) is that I honestly just can’t with anything anymore in a way that makes me feel like I can and should say whatever I want.

And lately I’ve been thinking a lot about our individual obligation to engage with the horrors, what it means to be exposed to all this sorrow and have to process it with a brain better suited for appreciating the moon. Where lies the balance between the ethics of bearing witness and the inevitable self harm of ingesting this immense grief we have no way to collectively digest?

Our world is in the midst of a spiritual crisis, for those committing atrocious acts of war, for those suffering because of them, and for those of us watching, heartbroken, feeling powerless to do anything about it.

We are all so connected, if not physically or spiritually (though a case could be made), then at least through technology. It’s haunting to witness this level of loss.

War unfolding on a phone screen from thousands of miles away is not life or death when you’re the one watching it, but it’s something we’ve never experienced at this magnitude and my god none of us are OK and if you think you’re OK then you get this week’s distinction in Unhingement and your prize is you owe the rest of us a little treat for putting up with your delusional ass, little treats being another mass adaptation because now we need to bribe ourselves like lab rats to get anything done.

Social media has become our imperfect collective consciousness, an algorithm-driven purveyor of both truth and deceit that illuminates the shadows as quickly as it creates new ones. I think the greatest adaptation we’ll have to make, at least for those of us who have no choice but to feel deeply and stay online, is to figure out how to transmute all this pain into hope that there can be a better way.

Because there has to be. Because the most extreme voices can’t always be the loudest. Because the only way forward is together, or at least not this far apart.

As always, I’m earnestly and actively rooting for peace, for an immediate end to the death and destruction, for safety and freedom for everyone, equally, against all odds, in a way we’ve never known.

And also lovingly giving you permission to flush your phone down the toilet if you need to.

Because these horrors, they persist, but like the resilient wolves of Chernobyl, so shall we.

Less Lessons More Blessin’s™️

Liz