Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Apocalypse Wanted

All this past year (hell, most years since I can remember), I have a nagging sense of something about to happen. An Event. Something to change and make History. An Apocalypse.
Things are boiling and stirring to World War III, Alien Invasion, Unimaginable Epidemics (including zombification viruses) and more..
I have to admit these senarios are more the product of an inner desire than educated guesses based on observation. Sure there is unrest, instability, wars, doom predictions, crazy prophets and more. The world is ablaze, it seems, but then again, has there been a time when it wasn't?
I came across this great article, which is right to the point. It describes those feelings with no name but Anarchy, and puts them in perspective. Really it does.

" And sitting there by the slack and dirty water, I had one of those moments of scorching self-vision. I realized that I'd been hiding underneath the skirts of the apocalypse for decades now. I'd daydreamed disasters as a way of not wanting too much, not caring too much; keeping safe from the fear too much knowledge of current events tends to tattoo on your brain.

But real apocalypses are sordid, banal, insane. If things do come unraveled, they present not a golden opportunity for lone wolves and well-armed geeks, but a reality of babies with diarrhea, of bugs and weird weather and dust everywhere, of never enough to eat, of famine and starving, hollow-eyed people, of drunken soldiers full of boredom and self-hate, of random murder and rape and wars which accomplish nothing, of many fine things lost for no reason and nothing of any value gained. And survivalists, if they actually manage to avoid becoming the prey of larger groups, sitting bitter and cold and hungry and paranoid, watching their supplies run low and wishing they had a clean bed and some friends. Of all the lies we tell ourselves, this is the biggest: that there is any world worth living in that involves the breakdown of society."

This guy states all that ring true to me, with a clarity of thought I envy. I am too, done thinking like a twelve-year old. Time to grow up...