"Survival is all relative." - John Locke
Haha, I'm getting in Lost wherever I can. But seriously this is about something that was bugging me awhile that was nevertheless resolved.
I've noticed that there have been a frequent number of disasters lately. Not only disasters, but just bad things in general happening. It's as if the whole world is literally going over the edge. Let's see we started off this fair century of ours with the mixture of buildings and hijacked planes in the middle of New York. Let's see, after that we've had a pointless war, a bullshit government with bullshit plans, recession, near depression, Hurricane Katrina, tsunamis, earthquakes, the burning of California's woodland area, a helluva lot of flu epidemics, fear mongering media, ever growing global warming, talks of the 2012 end of the world theory along with like ten bogus Christian Apocalypse prophecies... and of course Southland Tales. Pretty bad start. My paranoid and frankly pessimistic mind got to thinking "What if this is close to the end? What if it is all a chain of events that will determine the way the world dies?" It may not be the Apocalypse some of those Christians and fanatics are praying for, or even just the sudden death of earth like those Mayans thought, but that it might be a once slow process that is getting faster as the future presses on. Recent horrific events that have befallen Haiti and Chile have just strengthened this cliche fear even more.
Of course I had talk about it to somebody. Later on I felt like if I kept thinking about it I would up standing in the middle of a busy street corner with a sign over my chest proclaiming "THE END IS NIGH". I of course talked to my mom about this. My mom, being more of a realist than I have ever been, told me that these things haven't just started happening this fast. It only seems like this is all happening so fast because of the technological advances in communication. This is something I always talked about, but still forgot. The whole world is connected these days. Only a miniscule set of people don't have cell phones, different kids from different sides of the planet can strike up a friendship on Twitter, all accounts of friends and family and acquaintances can be listed on Facebook and Myspace, and the most minor event in the most irrelevant place can be caught in HD and broadcasted all over the world within a few moments. All of the terrible things happening recently only seems like it is all happening faster because we get information much quicker than say twenty or even ten years ago. Maybe someday I, a kid in Indiana, can know about a pin dropping in Pakistan within a matter of seconds.
Once again, mom puts me at ease. Ah mother where would I be without you? Malnourished, probably. Anyways, I have made my peace with destruction but not the end of the world, which is scientifically stated to be inevitable. One day, when man and all of our magics have been gone for millions of years, the sun will die out and destroy the earth. And after that the galaxy will collapse on itself. I try to comfort myself sometimes by thinking that in all likelyhood a new universe will form and the cycle will be repeated. In fact, while writing that last line I got the crazy idea that when everything ends and then begins again, if the cycle is repeated there will be another me who does the same things and will billions of years from now write this post and this sentence. Or perhaps it won't be the exact same, but a me with different touches (which sounds suspiciously like recent episodes of that TV show I'm always talking about). I don't know, a person like me cannot be expected to fathom the secrets of life. At least not now.
Regarding destruction in this world one last time, though, I will say that destruction is a natural part of life. Part of being a human being is rebuilding what is lost if possible. The ruins of Haiti and Chile will soon enough be reconstructed and people will be happy again. And when this universe of ours evaporates it must be remembered, as John Mellencamp once said, life goes on.
This has been a drawn out thought from Your Modest Guru. Thanks for reading.
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