The End of the World. Sort of.
91 degree weather in November. A reality (but not really reality) television personality running for the presidency. A political insider manipulates her way into the running for the presidency. Persons being unable to function without their phones. Guns all around. Russia and America returning to Cold War tactics (encouraged by a presidential candidate, no less). Africa running out of water. Drought and disintegrating ice caps. Wars and rumors of wars without end.
It must be the end of the world.
Well, in some ways, it actually is.
The world I grew up in, in which television shows were "interrupted" by breaking news rather than having 24/7 "news" channels blathering on in partisan outcries against one another, was different. Toy guns looked real and real guns were rare. The Cold War was always threatening to turn hot. The World's Fair was a big deal. Saturday morning cartoons were funny, exciting, but not really pandering. Batman's costume was still mostly blue, and the world was shocked by the death of John Lennon.
I could go on. The point is, though, that that world is gone. The stores in the mall that I used to walk around have long since gone out of business (how we miss thee, Record Bar! Gold Mine and Miller's, we hardly knew ye!) or have been replaced. The television shows are gone, some forgotten with good reason, and the television stars on whom I had early childhood/pre-adolescent crushes just don't quite look like I remember.
Gone, too, are the wars and ideologies that held sway during that particular time of our world's existence. While fascism, totalitarianism, theocracies, and capitalistic ideologies still exist, the particularities have changed. In some ways, like political parties, what I might have thought of as capitalism may very well seem alien to contemporary definitions - much like Republicans and Democrats of decades and decades gone by might think of our contemporary political understandings. It happens. Cars have changed (they have gotten a whole lot bigger), and we may not always notice that until someone drives by us in a 1970 Chevrolet station wagon with wood paneling on the side and we recognize that times, tastes, and styles have most definitely changed.
With the changing of the president, we are also witnessing the end of a world. Whomever takes the seat, we will be seeing something new ushered in. Good or bad I have no idea. Different? Of course. So to claim that the world is ending is, in some ways, quite true. The world we had is gone and, in some ways, it is long gone. Never to return. Can we even imagine television stations signing off anymore? We might yearn for it, but those days have passed. And except for the fanatics who would be happy living in radioactive mud huts, the rest of the world has to learn to move on, because what was is no more.
Is the actual world coming to an end? Hard to say. Weather wise and earthquake wise, it would appear that the earth does want to put humanity on notice. But even if the earth decides to shake us off, that doesn't mean the end of the world - just our participation in a brief narrative in the ever unfolding history of time.
It must be the end of the world.
Well, in some ways, it actually is.
The world I grew up in, in which television shows were "interrupted" by breaking news rather than having 24/7 "news" channels blathering on in partisan outcries against one another, was different. Toy guns looked real and real guns were rare. The Cold War was always threatening to turn hot. The World's Fair was a big deal. Saturday morning cartoons were funny, exciting, but not really pandering. Batman's costume was still mostly blue, and the world was shocked by the death of John Lennon.
I could go on. The point is, though, that that world is gone. The stores in the mall that I used to walk around have long since gone out of business (how we miss thee, Record Bar! Gold Mine and Miller's, we hardly knew ye!) or have been replaced. The television shows are gone, some forgotten with good reason, and the television stars on whom I had early childhood/pre-adolescent crushes just don't quite look like I remember.
Gone, too, are the wars and ideologies that held sway during that particular time of our world's existence. While fascism, totalitarianism, theocracies, and capitalistic ideologies still exist, the particularities have changed. In some ways, like political parties, what I might have thought of as capitalism may very well seem alien to contemporary definitions - much like Republicans and Democrats of decades and decades gone by might think of our contemporary political understandings. It happens. Cars have changed (they have gotten a whole lot bigger), and we may not always notice that until someone drives by us in a 1970 Chevrolet station wagon with wood paneling on the side and we recognize that times, tastes, and styles have most definitely changed.
With the changing of the president, we are also witnessing the end of a world. Whomever takes the seat, we will be seeing something new ushered in. Good or bad I have no idea. Different? Of course. So to claim that the world is ending is, in some ways, quite true. The world we had is gone and, in some ways, it is long gone. Never to return. Can we even imagine television stations signing off anymore? We might yearn for it, but those days have passed. And except for the fanatics who would be happy living in radioactive mud huts, the rest of the world has to learn to move on, because what was is no more.
Is the actual world coming to an end? Hard to say. Weather wise and earthquake wise, it would appear that the earth does want to put humanity on notice. But even if the earth decides to shake us off, that doesn't mean the end of the world - just our participation in a brief narrative in the ever unfolding history of time.
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