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The end is near? Give me a break!

Posted April 3rd, 2010 by Samuel Tornqvist

Why are some people so into "the end is near" or "doomsday" premonitions?

With the internet I feel like I stumble upon this daily. Some take the time and effort to create stunning graphical visuals on how the earth will be disintegrated in different ways.

Is this a shadow of a certain meme?

Why this obsession? What is so great about the world ending?
I see almost any culture, artefact, art-piece, dream, history fact, book, philosopher from the past, etc, turned into "proof" that the end is near.

I guess it gives some false support in "knowing" what will happen? Hence the predictions.
But why not predictions of good things at least if that is what you have to do? Why the doom and gloom all the time?

I have also noticed that a lot of people who say these things tend to have a smirk on their face. Perhaps they finally got back at all "evil" out there by dooming everybody?

How about mandatory object-relation theory classes in schools?

So, about me:
I think I feel frustrated because it does not seem to be anything I can do about it. It does not seem to matter how smart or understanding I am. I have tried deep listening understanding. I have tried the more fighting challenging approach. I don't get through at all. I mean people are set on these believes. (Perhaps the way I am set on mine?) 

A quick analyze of myself could be that with all my knowledge I feel I have a chance to get back at the "evil world" by putting people in their place. When I see this opportunity my excitement kicks in and then the frustration start by not being able to use all the great knowledge I have acquired. Well, I think that is a part of the truth. But what is the rest?

If I talk "the language" of the "doom-ist" it just seems to deepen his enthusiasm. I do believe there is wisdom in listening but I am also really eager to set things "straight".

The other day it turned out that one of the members in my men's group is a UFO fanatic, meaning he absolutely knows that we are controlled and that one day "we will see the truth". Quite surprised, I tried to be patient and ask him what he meant and what he wanted to say, as I felt my heart wanting to jump out of me, eager to "nail this".

My practice kept me back from attacking him. But in a way I still don't know what would have been the best approach. I know I ask that question because I am very set in the result I want; I want to understand.
But I also feel that I am too sensitive and nice and perhaps it could be useful if I actually helped people wake up a bit.

I guess it is a tricky balance. I mean, as a metaphor, I don't want my kid to run in front of the car. I could say: “Listen, please don't run in front of the car...." with a nice voice but sometimes I have to shake my kid and scream "NO!"

So, what do you think?

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scale

Posted April 4th, 2010 by stefano

I find the question interesting as it touches on the global warming thing, which a while ago I became sceptic / questioning / "denialist" about. To me the global warming thing is interesting because it touches on the question of, when faced with experts who claim to know more, do I trust them? What criteria do I use, given that at the end of the day, I have to be responsible for whom I choose to follow?

The global warming thing is about how a group of experts know more, and if I'm questioning what they say, am I doing it out of ignorance, or out of better judgement? So it is all very tricky. Throw in the basic premise that a world view or paradigm is sorta complete in itself -- very difficult to disprove from the inside, although a paradigm can offer genuine truths and insights. It is like, am I being teal, or am I being some sort of orange deluding itself to be teal?

The question of who or what is higher, wider, more inclusive, is real tricky. I can plot for myself things I used to believe that I no longer believe, and actually, if I were given a choice, I wouldn't want to go back to.

So to me, in my perspective, whatever perspective I now have, I consider better than the perspective I used to have. But that's something I notice over decades, and it isn't like anybody was able to say things to me to instantly make me change -- even though in hindsight, I seem to remember they were trying.

As for the end of the world, and the way that global warmists seem almost as if they'd be kinda upset if the world wasn't about to burn, I can only say that, for myself, if I stop and wonder that my life might transpire kinda uneventfully, that humanity will continue to progress in waves, slowly, across the centuries and aeons, and that even if Earth was to suffer a life ending meteor strike, the Xerox machine of Nature has probably created similar life elsewhere in the vast billions of stars and planet out there -- if I bring all of that to mind, it seems to me that my life becomes very insignificant, in a light sense. Very light, very inconsequential, very unimportant, very small. 

Hell, even if we are being controlled by aliens, who want to harvest our brains for alien juice food, that would be inconsequential, like a few bugs in a field that live a summer and are swept away by heavy rainfall. Even those aliens are inconsequential --  they're probably just sucking our brains to distract themselves from the kosmic  incosequentiality of their own lives (and just imagine how much bigger the universe must seem to them, when they've actually visited some of it and seen further than we can).

In short, nothing very exciting is going to happen. And even if it did, it would be a speck of dust in the wind.

 

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maybe

Posted April 4th, 2010 by Justin Gauthier

Hard to say.

 

Apocalyptic movements are not new and have been dredged up countless times in history. Whenever one era became corrupt with social upheaval and political strife, there is always receptiveness to new ideas along with revivalist, nativistic, syncretic and apocalyptic movements. The mass appeal of doomsday and even hunger/desire for wanton destruction is an exaggerated expression of priming the evolutionary pump on much subtler levels. The difference is that some sit and incubate knowing the evolutionary impulse is calling for both higher orders of self-governing and collective "we-space" sharing while others become intoxicated on these exaggerated expressions causing widespread deindividuation and more sleepy time.

 

Every generation almost needs to pinpoint the disastrous consequences of the previous generation. Doomsday is oddly renewal—getting rid of the old to make way for the new. Deconstruction, re-organization & re-construction. Catabolic break-down/anabolic build up. Always reaching towards higher homeostasis.

 

... (maybe)