Life is a tragedy when seen in close-up, but a comedy in long-shot. - Charlie Chaplin

Friday, May 20, 2011

if I leave here tomorrow

OK, so, if the world ends tomorrow, let me be numbered among those who decided to blog about it.  Why not?  If anything is to live on beyond us it's bound to be technology, right?  Thousands of years from now a new life form, swinging by Ol' Earth, all burnt up and judged, discovers and extracts my dribble from a server of the "ancient interweb".  Not quite as dramatic as discovering the Dead Sea Scrolls or Titanic, but maybe they'll read this and think "What's the Titanic?  Sounds more interesting, let's go find THAT!". 

I did have a minor episode, more like a passing thought, as a dad-to-be, that the people claiming the end is coming tomorrow, 8pm New Zealand time, are jerks...they suck.  You can't seriously be suggesting that now, half-way through my wife's pregnancy, the world will be thrown into chaos and we'll all be dispatched into heaven or hell over the course of 5 months?! 

I'm sorry to shock the crap out of ya, but, at least in my humble opinion, the world is and will continue to be on a slippery chaotic slope, ultimately careening into an earth we can't live on anymore.  Mankind has very effieceintly created many means of self-destruction and I'm not just talking atomic bombs.  From plastic bags, to cars, to the food we eat, we make things, manipulate things and attempt to control things in a hope to "make life easier", all while nipping away at the itegrity of nature, the earth, the climate, the things we really need to simply live.  So, I'm convinced the people of earth don't need any help from a mightier power to destroy themselves, or bring an end to the world, we got this one big guy.  

The Mississippi River, the most engineered river on the planet, swelling and taking back its flood plains.  Nuclear panic in Japan after a massive earth quake send a tsunami into the island nation.  Common feature: panic due to something man-made getting screwed by nature.  Hurricane Katrina too, biggest problem, the breeching of the levies.  I have the utmost sympathy for those who lost loved ones, their homes and their livelihood to these horrible events, don't get me wrong.  Tese examples I want to use as proof for my aforementioned theory. 

Recently, after hearing a radio interview pertaining to the development of meat in labs, I knew all hope was lost.  "Development "of any kind usually means money, probably lots of it, was dumped into the research and materials in an attempt to make it.  It means that someone thought that people can't find, or moreover, won't ever accept any other protein source that wasn't a juicy steak or burger.  People are preparing for the day when cows and other delicious animals won't be cheap or as accessible a food source as they are today.  No mention of promoting other, natural, means of meat or other protein production, just creating yet another Sweet-n-Low, another High Fructose Corn Syrup.  How can this not be taken as BAD sign?! 

Where to go once we made earth into a wasteland?  I guess that's really the question. Will there be a "place" to go and how will we get there?  The answer, to me, is right there.  There is no "place" to go once we've messed everything up, the place is here.  We can let it go or make it better.  A beautiful and sustainable place to live or a smogged-over wasteland where we all burn under the UV rays of the sun that once grew our food. 

1 comment:

  1. Well done my friend! What you described is a world of Dante-esque proportions. Not in any fantastical after-life but right here, right now. If all the doomsday knuckle heads took a little more time dealing with the heaven and or hell they are living HERE and NOW, instead of preparing for what's to come later, perhaps things can change and that "place" we're looking for can be here!

    That was uncharacteristically optimistic.....

    ReplyDelete