We’re doomed.
No kidding. In fact, we’re all in so many crosshairs it’s a wonder any of us are here at all.
For at least a year now I’ve been fed a steady and authoritative diet of disaster predictions. I’ve received them in the wee hours of the morning.
No, I’m not a clairvoyant, and I’m not visited in my bedroom by dour but beneficent aliens offering to save mankind. I’m a night worker. I generally get home between 2 and 3 a.m. The wife’s asleep and the critters are just interested in their late-night snacks.
I just can’t fall into bed so I flip on the tube for a bit of background noise and electronic anesthesia. But rather than put me to sleep, I’m warned of impending disasters and how fragile our existence is on planet Earth.
Just to go down the list in no particular order, according to the History, Discovery and National Geographic channels, a mega-volcano beneath Yellowstone National Park is overdue to go off and wipe out half of North America, a “planet killer” asteroid with our name on it is floating around in the void, a dying star is about to unleash a radiation burst that’ll take us out of the picture in a second or so, and the ocean is farting. Yeah, the last one made me sit up and take notice too, but it seems parts of the ocean are releasing mega-belches of methane gas and you don’t want to be caught lighting up when one of those reaches the surface.
Each of these predictions is painstakingly plotted, not by end-of-the-world nutcases, but by sober scientists – every one of whom somberly intones at some point in the program, “It’s not a matter of if, but when.” Or, “It’s happened before; it’ll happen again.”
Then they go to commercials like the one seeking volunteers for a medical study on depression, the one that lists the top symptoms of depression in men. I had every one of them; I was concerned. Until I realized I had reasons to be depressed … especially after watching these disaster programs. Yikes!
And let’s not forget the Mayan calendar ends in 2012. It’ll be all over then. But I wonder if we should be putting much stock in Mayan devices; after all, their civilization fell apart long before their calendar did. Yeah, didn’t see that coming. The Mayan calendar is going to end because there aren’t anymore Mayan mucky-mucks to keep it going. Come on, if we lay off the guy who winds up Big Ben, there won’t be anymore boings coming from Westminster, either.
Are the end times really upon us? Maybe we should ask the Seventh-day Adventists.
Nostradamus keeps being pulled out of mothballs along with various other seers-through-the-years. Revelations is consulted as well as the sutras. Everyone wants to know when it’ll all blow up and then blow away.
Gentle readers, our world will indeed end, the day we close our eyes for the last time. That’s a fact that’s set in stone, and when it happens, if we have the time, we inventory our regrets. May I suggest that the one with the fewest regrets wins. So love as much as you can as often as you can.
In the meantime, I’d advise you not to let yourselves get too worked up. Because in none of these disaster scenarios is there any sort of escape plan offered. We might try sending Bruce Willis into space to blow up an asteroid, but what are you going to do about a volcano as big as Montana?
Back during the height of the Black Death, groups of folks assuming they were all doomed anyway banded in an ongoing frolic … a roving picnic with sex and dancing and good times. Now that’s the way to meet your doom.
When did hopelessness become entertainment, anyway? Maybe there’s just been so much of it someone decided to make lemonade out of the lemons. I’m just waiting for guys like Vince on TV to begin selling comet-proof, volcano-proof, whatever-proof Snuggies for just $19.95 – but only to the first hundred callers because time’s running short and, after all, “we can’t do this all day.”
I’m glad scientists are measuring the groundswell at Yellowstone, the spread of the San Andreas Fault, the ice melt at the poles. I’m glad they’re scanning the skies. Maybe, just maybe, they’ll come up with a way to avoid Armageddon. In some cases, they’ve already told us what we need to do – we just have to get up off our asses and do it.
I just wish they wouldn’t tell me just before I go to bed.
Robert Buckley
February 2010
“Cracking Foxy” © 2010 Robert Buckley. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.