I knew I’d be disappointed.  The world didn’t end December 21st as promised, and I’m still here to face the reality that is my life on this planet.  Oh well, it will end sooner or later, either collectively or for me alone, this journey.

I was thinking about why these end of the world theories are so popular, even when they’re totally absurd.  I think there is an appeal to not having to take the trip alone, to journey into the unknown with 8 billion other people is somehow less frightening than making the journey solo.  Of course, as a Christian, my home is for Christ to return and be pulled up into the heavens with Christ, but 2,000 years have passed without that happening yet, odds of it happening within my lifetime are slim.

But then what do odds have to do with it?  When you think of all the things that had to come together just right for life even to exist, let alone the intelligent complex life forms that we are, the odds are infinitesimal, yet, here we are.

It does seem to me since we don’t know how long it will be, and just out of respect for the creator, we ought to be taking better care of this planet than we are.  We’re here now, for how long we don’t know, so best make the best of what we have.

When I think back 40 years ago or so, I expected we would have either nuked ourselves out of existence by now, or we’d be far more advanced in every way, socially, technologically, spiritually, than we actually are.  While technology has improved in some areas, computers for example, it’s stagnated or deteriorated in others.  It’s almost impossible to get a decent stereo or guitar amp anymore for example.

And personal freedom, hell you can’t play music anymore without getting in trouble for being too loud, you can’t celebrate the 4th of July anymore, fireworks are illegal almost everywhere.  And yea, I know people do anyway, but the point is what’s the point of celebrating freedom we don’t have anymore.  The constitution isn’t worth the hemp paper it’s written on these days.

Art Bell used to theorize that people died when things changed so much they could no longer tolerate it anymore.  At times I feel close to that point.