ALL OUT! HOW & WHEN.
As a youngster I remember we talked about “the end of the world”. When I was very young we thought of it in terms of World War I with trench warfare and diabolical gas attacks complete with ponderous, clanking tanks and flying mechanisms of all kinds, Balloons, multi-winged planes, dirigibles, zeppelins, anything that might conceivably attack from the sky. Such a giant would destroy the Earth as we knew it.
Then, also with wars, we always had dire threats of heavenly destruction which came to us through evangelistic movements with fiery preachers expounding upon visions of world-wide castigation by the Lord of all to was our sins away. That was always vague for me especially when it was expounded upon, usually with some plan of instant change. One sure thing,, however, was that the ruin of the world would be not by flood, nor famine but by fire!
It's been some time since we were told that . We faced a time of regret concerning wars and of our role in peace time. World War II was a worthy example - pretty close to making it all come true in our time. Out of that, however, came World War II and the Bomb which is now equated with the “fire” which will, someday destroy us all the same.
I remember one Science News Service items which I clipped and which I still have rotting away somewhere in my “files”. It plainly predicted, quoting no one in particular, that the imbalance between dry land and wet water would do us all in. Exactly what kind algae that was, I do not recall, but I'll let you know if I come across that clipping, so you can if that event has merely been delayed. As I recall, it was supposed to be depleted by the 1960's and the oceans were to be dead and useless without it with terra firma was to follow suit shortly thereafter.
It would be interesting to tally up how many thousands of people have gone in large groups to some mountain top, as a rule, to await the moment of total elimination of the world. So many thought of total ruin as being partial - for they would come down from the mountain top after everybody else had been destroyed to a newly created world of absolute purity into which they fit quite naturally.
One would think we would outgrow this death wish sort of thinking, but the idea of total of total elimination is even stronger and made more personal today because of our environmental proclivities. Dire disaster today faces mankind because of certain foods we eat; because of some quirky political stances; because of the foods we do not eat, and because some social segments seem to want it that way to “prove” their point.
This negative dream places some persons as rulers over wastelands, and, I suppose there is a bit of Sigmund Freud in it all, because some people see themselves and their ideas as being the only method capable of forestalling such a dire conclusion - once more.
We waste a lot of time out time thinking when or how all of this will take place. I have a feeling it will all be over at some point and none of need even know it has happened. In the cryptic parlance of the stereotyped Brooklyn-ite: “Not to worry!”
A.L.M. October 23, 2002 [c579wds]
