Language is a poor enough means of communication as it is. So we should use all the words we have. - Caitlín R. Kiernan

We are indeed living at the end of the Golden Age of Mankind, or at least the end of this particular human civilization. That almost everything we take for granted today may, only a couple of decades farther along, seem entirely remarkable, that our most mundane artefacts and toys will stand as incredible examples of luxury and excess. That all of this will pass away, and the "simplest" bits of our day-to-day lives will become miracles of a half-remembered past. A past which will be responsible for that future-present misery. It is difficult to force myself through the trivial routine of my days when these thoughts are front and center. It is difficult to see beyond the veil they draw up about me and difficult to push it all aside long enough to write my silly little stories.

…but that was a long time ago, a long story everyone’s tired of repeating, or a short story simply not worth repeating again.

Art should never be a slave to commerce, but for all working artists that's exactly what it must be.