Thoughts The End of the World …. or Lack Thereof

Hello, good morning on the Day After The Apocalypse…

Well, you’re not surprised the world didn’t end (again) right?  At this point the whole ‘end of the world is nigh’ stuff sounds like an updated version of crying wolf.  We’ve heard it so many times it has no meaning, unless it’s for comedy, to encourage ‘end of the world’ shagging or for advertising purposes, or maybe as a desperate grab for media attention and adding members to your end-of-the-world cult.  What’s really sad (besides the fact that some people fall for this shit), is that the word ‘apocalypse’ has less and less meaning every year.  If a writer uses the word ‘apocalyptic’ these days, what effect will it have on the reader?  Will it evoke images of unnecessary hysteria?   Ridiculous posts to social media?  Humorous pictures of cats?  Apocalypse just ain’t what it used to be folks, now it’s a word that stands for ‘stupid over-hyped crap sold to the gullible masses’.  So one task we writers have now is to find another world to evoke fear and increased sex drive in the masses.

Anyhow, waking up on 12/21/12 and finding that — as expected — everything and everyone was where I’d left it the night before, I wonder about the missed opportunity.  Maybe we should start over.  We’ve got people seriously suggesting we put more guns in schools to prevent people from bringing more guns into schools.  And a host of other equally fucked up bullshit being promoted as Truth and Solutions and God’s Way.  All of which points to a severe and depraved lack of empathy, love, generosity, open heartedness, open mindedness and humanity, not to mention basic intelligence.

So the world did not end, again.  And even though I didn’t believe it was going to end, not even a little, I feel like this is a great opportunity to reassess my way of living in the world.  Maybe the world was reborn overnight and it just looks the same because we expect it to be the same.  Maybe the secret to rebirth is to believe in it, to look for it, to embody it.  So, in that spirt, my rebirth (this time around) is about trying to be more intentional, more conscious of my actions in the world.  I want to be reborn as someone who takes more time, who breathes more fully, who doesn’t hurry through each moment to get to the next.  I want to be newly born as someone who savors everything more, yes, everything, even the moments/feelings/thoughts we normally judge as negative.  Being more present in my life will hopefully allow me to see others more clearly, to be open to their needs rather than jumping in with my pre-fab rescue plan.  Haste makes waste, that’s what comes to mind whenever I find myself hurrying through things.  Sometimes that means I drop things, or walk into door jams, or forget stuff.  Sometimes it means I trample all over other people’s feelings and needs.  So my goal for this life after the end of the world is to slow the fuck down and stop being so wasteful.  I’m hoping very much that my relationships will be all the better for this new approach.

And even if I’m completely off base, at least I didn’t wake up the day after the world was supposed to end and tell the world that the answer to gun violence was more guns, at least I wasn’t that asshole.

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